Sarah Giragosian: The Display

I.
Gone: the lilac dive,
the glitter of pollen. Gone
too are the cosmos.


II.
Bestowed on a tack,
below the thorax, the name
Papilio hovers.


III.
The grave enclosure
frames the line-up: they’re tagged now,
stiff in their lockup.


IV.
Mounted, splayed like cards,
the Pieridae are flightless,
like scissored play-hearts.


V.
Moths, their negatives,
seem over-exposed, their scales
like gauze in bulbed light.


VI.
The voyeur eye frets
at their flourished laterals,
their backs gripped by pins.


V.
Not stomped on, nor swept
away, these bugs, with pupil-
patterned wings, stare back.


This poem has previously appeared in The Formalist