Monarch

by AMELIA WILLIAMS

ravenous leaf leaf leaf no amount of chewing
dulls my hunger famished milkweed oozes
until skin splits black yellow white bands my tentacles

warn birds beware I eat until a new urgency moves
within wander it says climb hang in a J-shape
spin a thick pad to clasp stem cremaster hook holds

shake shimmy shed old shriveled shred swirl
green airy silken thread bejeweled gold rim
fluid inside floss flows juices pool my nodes

imaginal buds conduct self-devouring sauce
new shapes blossom in quiet tiny wings tuck
proboscis almost ready to uncoil palpi keen

to scent the breeze crucible cocktail shaker
red yellow scales overlap for orange tarsal claws
tip tip to walking legs pheromones seep sluice

green chrysalis now transparent cracks palimpsest
written on wings I emerge fly eat brood magnetic
ley lines guide trans-volcanic milkweed bloom time

butter yellow gleam ribbed ovoid bubble domes
stipple dot each leaf burgeon batch bulge
wriggle chew hatch as ever we’re raven