Monarch

I see you in candlelight, touching memories
Like bruises, soft pressure escalates
To pain. My grandfather taught me to touch
Fire in taps and brushes, butterfly kisses
With flame.

Monarch butterflies nurse in milkweed,
Daughters on poisoned breasts
Assimilating toxins. Birthright
Is an alembic
Leaded with longing.

(From introduction to interdiction leaded gasoline
Cost the average American 2.6 IQ points.)

There are days I spend bedridden
Sweating through sheets wandering
Distraction by distraction— Now, now, don’t be drastic.
We live in the age of microplastic;
Drunk on Spanish wines, Swiss chocolates,
French kisses plastic wrapped
And tidily packed in single-portion
Sachets. And I am still not happy.
Today I am ribbon wrapped lead
To water unmoored And wishing to become.

I wonder if it hurts, to fly
On wings annealed in poison.
All I know is the butterfly
     still floats
   like
     wildfire
over dusty riverbeds.