Catherine Gonick

Nostalgie De La Boue

What if like a butterfly
you lived only on liquid
and tasted the world with your feet--
and standing in nectar
uncoiled your proboscis
like a miniature elephant’s trunk
that sucked all you desired?

Would you regret escaping
the silken tomb that dissolved
your fat and transformed you,
cast you out with crumpled wings
that warmed in sun to shine
from a thousand shingled scales?

Would you dare to steer
those ominously eye-spotted
wings over flowers and plants
crowning dirt feedlots
of ravenous leaf-eating caterpillars?

And soaring above those earnest crawlers,
would you consent to remain
their indifferent god, or be tempted
to look down?