Something about seeing
a preserved butterfly’s wings
pinned back makes me think
about mercy, about how
Nabokov drew each wing as
delicately as some braid hair.
I would like to unspool each
lingering strand of air never
touched by harsh animal chaos
and patches of dust never written
on by wings. Some days I sit on the
park bench in the inner sunset and think
lightning, volcanoes—even with
our human fire so hidden. I think
dissections—of pine trees and
sparrows, cabinet of curiosities
that we are, I would never dream
of looking in the other direction
when the spider eggs hatch and
the wind shakes the sycamores
like they owe it money. I am
known to only take what I need,
so when I leave nothing has been
misplaced and damages are clean
and unbroken. But I am only human:
I want the treasure without the pain
and bad tastes that need a scalpel
or maybe just some very fine tweezers
to get out.
I want to open up the small world we knew
and find something bright worth claiming,
the small miracle that made it all happen,
the part of us that’s still worth saving.
Aya Elizabeth is an artist, bookseller, and poet living in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she is also from. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming in Konch Magazine, Typishly, The Write Launch, Up The Staircase Quarterly, Habitat Magazine, and Twyckenham Notes.
