Butterfly Effect (7/24/10)

Behind the tacky mailbox sways a stand of Queen Anne’s-lace
craning above the pothole only deepened by the mail-truck.
Car-keys have scratched out most of the purple appliquéd butterflies,
no longer idealized outlines that dance above the digits,
antennae brushing numbers feebly re-emphasized with magic-marker.

You’ll never rid the hillside of those clutches of sumac:
now they are yours, touched with choke-cherry bushes and nightshade,
berries crimson as a blood-drop that oozes from a pricked fingertip.

Emperor butterflies were supposed to feed on these weeds.
When the Queen Anne’s lace makes brown and broom-like bundles,
the caterpillar was supposed to crawl the stems
feed on dead lacy flowers. And once hatched from the chrysalis,
they’d flock the land the mailbox represents,
settle above the lawn, cool the sky with just wings.

That doesn’t happen. Not a single black emperor butterfly
hatches. Nothing climbs the wild carrot to feed on the flower.
After the dog-days, the lace is clutched and unmolested.

This scene makes the lakes a carriage ride away feel remote as Arabia,
mocking-birds among the wind-stripped oaks and maples.
The neighboring mailboxes are uniform and standard-issue black.
The remaining vinyl butterflies become an embarrassment.

The Emperor butterfly is said to feast on Queen Anne's Lace,
wild carrot flourishing in soil as poor as this, and weed-pleated.
The caterpillars were said to crawl the stems of the weed,
To metamorphose among the late no longer lacy flowers
That neither beautify nor hide this hillside of shale.

Neither one thing exactly or another: only unwanted mullein
Rival the wild carrot and the cones of sumac:
So beware of theories, of things heard about, of hope itself.