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TROGONOPTERA
BROOKIANA
Hello,
a butterfly hot enough hops
up through the tenderest chats,
threats
and clefts of birdsong, and gropes
round our sunhats
in
the forest clearing. What does our soft
visitor importune us
for?
Asks? When will
blood be coughed?
Or must we guess?
Close
the wing-gates of your dark cape
dripping with oval green eyes.
And
take a glass: rye, mint julep—
we randomise.
Like
the sweat of dreams the sweet mind-robbing
drug clots the goblet’s
side.
You will not drink? The
bobbing
proboscis sets
tight.
Not your dope? Aren’t
you
with us in these swamp-water backs?
I
thought you a friend. There are frontier
troubles, attacks
we
have to cope with and ward off.
Lenient why can’t you be
with
this upstream station and wharf
to dock at, dwell by?
Why
come, refuse to drink, and wordless land?
By an omen we are gate-crashed!
What
is wrong with our mind,
colonial, smashed,
dissecting
the hot-resined green,
jotting our stuff still
so
it hangs together, breaks clean
off like a tale?
Off?
Get! Trogonoptera—let
me paint
my drunken picture of this
jungle
life. Why should I heed
your hint
of nemesis?
We’ll
lick our syrups. Keep our slips on file
while the creatures are relaxed.
Omen
butterfly, drink. And? I’ll
examine you next!
Alan
Marshfield
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