Buttermoth

One night I grew antennas
that felt the scent of flowers
before landing;

the mirror, however, showed
my face of a moth’s
eyes beaking out of place

like the ranger traveller
far off navigation

but I had been growing gifts, as solace,
out of my ears, like hair
that fell on plateaued discoveries;

a strand for secret
till I had collected a chest full

and my scalp exposed my deficiency:
the perennial seething for the white
of a petal I habitually inspected;

my wings burnt in holes, through
which colours of the air I flew
still project; me, a psychedelic beauty

changing colours
faces
odours

(lay me out like on a slice,
spread me so thin
till I dissolve)

to become so big to have become so small:

a skull of a pale-ish mask
over a mirror broken years ago.

* First published by Silver Birch Press, My Metamorphosis Series