Unconscious Came A Beauty

                        Unconscious                             
                  came a beauty to my                       
               wrist                                                  
              and stopped my pencil,                       
         merged its shadow profile with                 
      my hand's ghost                                          
   on the page:                                                   
   Red Spotted Purple or else Mourning              
Cloak,                                                               
paired thin-as-paper wings, near black,              
were edged on the seam side poppy orange, 

      as were its spots.                                                       
 I sat arrested, for its soot-haired
body's worm
shone in the sun.
It bent its tongue long as
a leg
black on my skin
and clung without my
feeling,
while its tomb-stained
duplicate parts of
a window opened.
And then I
moved.                May Swenson