remnants of a butterfly corpse — the once crowned
monarch now
flecks of amber caught in windshield wipers,
suspended in spectacle (like the pharoah, waking up
under the gaze of hell somewhere in london)
a flick of the lever will wash away the new
bugs who suicide dive onto my windshield, or the globs
of rain and – now i see — the road through an orange
iridescent lens, a quick wave from heaven
could it be forever, if I called out to, to God
or— anything— have something come crashing
through stained glass, get the shards embedded in my
eye, get reminded of the love every time i blink or try to
look away — have it slice up my retinas, see the world
with the red glow of the sacred heart
the saint medallion around my neck, picked at
random to compliment my silver hoops that irritate the
lobe and leave green ash stains — cheap metals on
cheaper flesh — saint peregrine the patron of AIDS
victims and various cancers (I wonder about the fags
shepherded to the next room by reagan’s high priests)
peregrine the pilgrim, the foreign, the traveling,
the fastest hawk on planet eden, migrating royals, kings
with no castle, my abdomen is red, swollen with
dysplasia and puss, cells with no purpose, remnants of a
foreign body, disinfected away with wiper fluid
