13 (Butterfly)

Mad-Hatted Cheshire butterfly
gleefully body-slamming naked glass,
blood-smear, red slide of pure joy,
fully embracing its sudden lack
of Freedom, a girl with no legs
suddenly proclaiming,

fuck it, i can dance

but it isn’t real

the dancer is not real, no longer dances,
the singer is not real, no longer sings,
the poet drinks heavily
and scribbles greeting cards
Hallmark wouldn’t print,
empty sentiments for people who still
believe in love, in love that believes in
them

he never was real,
nothing that ever was is
or ever was

the butterfly, bereft of chrysalis, no longer
can stationary be, the only power,
self-destruction, can be derived from
the confines of a glass jar,
her desire, to pulp her wings and laugh
all the way to the bottom,
those majestic ambulators, even in
scarlet ruin, beautiful as sin, tattered red lace
wrapping something, someone
that never did belong to you,
to anyone,

someone, something, that bears the scars
of self-deception and pretense, and harbors
the breath of a foreign country,
the taste of a stranger’s kiss.

[For Starfish]

Poem by Shane Douglas Keene

READ THE SERIAL NOVEL BY JOSH MALERMAN