“All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them.”
—Isak Dinesen
Sap green leaves gesture
Some underwater green
streaked with lemon punctured
with rough bitten holes
through which light pours.
Thistle Caterpillar’s chrysalis
secured to leaf by silken threads.
Within violent cellular insurgence
Vanessa Cardui transmogrifies.
Its mouth liquifies to gooiness
transforms to proboscis
that unfurls sips nectar coils.
* * *
Bobby Tuttobene sits at their dressing mirror
in a Copenhagen boudoir.
Lashes secured
flutter
metallic moon shadows their eyes
foundation contours the jawline
in school clashes, knuckled and bruised
mahogany tears rouge applied
metamorphosizes to Painted Lady
Photograph by Alison Deland Scott
Smoky Quartz 