Cecropia Terzine

I found one fall snugged tight onto its twig

A tapered swelling spun, a woven chamber

Milkweed-pod shapely, roughly half that big,

And like a pod which has by late September

Split open, spilt its cottonseeds and dried

To wrapping-paper lightness. Was this slumber?

A death? The chamber seemed unoccupied

And much unraveled at the tip, though shaken

It rattled as if something were inside-

A walnut in its hull . . . l'd touched the broken

Skyblue or speckled cups of songbird eggs

And shells of locusts, each a hollow icon

Still clinging to the bark with empty legs,

And loved their one-time tenants' winged completion;

And, knowing well what fragile sorts of dregs

Cicadas, sparrows, seeds leave, my impression

Of this cocoon's light dryness kept me quite

From seeing any signs of occupation.

And that was why, one January night,

I jerked awake for such a ghostly reason:

Somewhere I'd heard the thumping-flopping flight

Of wings shut up in darkness and in prison,

Doggedly feckless. Hangers crashed and clanged

Another terrifying diapason.

I lay a long time while the trapped wings banged

Themselves on wood and wire in their trouble

And blindly ricocheted and boomeranged

And flop-thumped till exhaustion wore them feeble

Inside the only closet in my room.

And when I switched a lamp on and felt able

To open it

there toppled from the gloom

Heavily sideways, stunned by light, a glory

Huge as a plate, with tiny, perfect, plume-

Like new antennae, feet red-orange and furry,

Thick furry abdomen, each panting wing

Powdered with cocoa-colored plush and starry

With one rich eyespot. Months before the spring

The furnace warmth had brought him forth in splendor,

Mad with an urge that powered his battering:

Break free and find your mate O find her find her!

My windowsills lay inches deep in snow

The females meant for him were sleeping under.

Born out of season, twenty years ago.

The wasteful barren death of so much beauty

Must hurt me till my own. I've come to know

Too well since that cold night in Cincinnati

What barren is, and for my sorry crime

Begun to know a terror and a pity

Unsayable save through this keeping time,

These saving graces slanted rhyme and rhyme.