Threat and Self Salvation
The bud looks like a ruined dream of cloth
That wants to be a pale mauve casing for
An infant butterfly or for a moth
Awaiting birth, except it opens more
Like tissue made of bruising and of scar,
Made more with doom than promise. Each dark edge
Unfurls like a chrysalis too far
Exposed to frost and hanging on the ledge
Of suicide. Then slowly like a pain
That turns to joy, the darker curlings spread
To wider beauty and the stain
Absolves itself to lavender instead.
The threat of ugliness dies, calm as snow,
Harsh defects are pastelled to afterglow.
June 4, 2016