{"id":7061,"date":"2016-02-02T21:22:11","date_gmt":"2016-02-03T04:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=7061"},"modified":"2016-02-03T19:11:06","modified_gmt":"2016-02-04T02:11:06","slug":"7061-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=7061","title":{"rendered":"Lessons in Lepidoptery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Melina Papadopoulos<\/strong><\/p>\n

i. Serenade for Wolf Moths and Mournful Poets<\/p>\n

We always return to the moon.
\nIt waits howl-spangled, record-scratched
\nacross all the best night ballads,
\ncathartic as a cat\u2019s eye taking light
\nthrough a milky cataract.<\/p>\n

We become nocturnal
\nwhen our words keep us awake.
\nWe stir as though from cocoons,
\npoets named by scientists.
\nWe pore over field guides,
\nidentify ourselves.<\/p>\n

Lettered Sphinx<\/em> \u2013 abdomen
\ncarved up, memorial in chicken-scratch.
\nDizzied by the woodwork
\nof our own oaken wings.<\/p>\n

We repeat our names
\nuntil they gain meaning,
\na genus, a family.<\/p>\n

ii.The Wingspan of an Atlas Moth in Translation<\/p>\n

Nostalgic for church bells,
\nincense that with its stern aroma
\nstartled me into reverence,<\/p>\n

plant my candle in the sand —
\nIn the moment, fear of fire quelled
\nas an answer to prayer.<\/p>\n

For all the wrong reasons,
\nstained glass moves me.
\nI am easier to confront
\nas mosaic, assertive
\nin my rejection of sun|
\nas a hasty spill of light.<\/p>\n

I chose two surfaces to study —
\nthe cold static waters of a plastic globe
\nand the pilgrim-penned flight of the Atlas moth.
\nWingspan tantalizing in a forgotten Greek alphabet,
\nbilateral deltas<\/em> revealed before flight.<\/p>\n

The first time I identified Greece on my globe,
\nI wondered at its mosaicked anatomy,
\nunlike the resolute fullness
\nI thought classified land into countries.<\/p>\n

iii. A Revised Map for Monarchs<\/p>\n

What compels a monarch butterfly into wanderlust:<\/p>\n

Sun in its systematic sweep
\nover archipelagos of milkweed,
\nrain that hitches rides on worn thoraxes,
\nair quivering with the pliable heat
\nmirages are made of.<\/p>\n

A knapsack of biological tools —
\na dizzied compass
\nunfamiliar to direction but partial
\nto the steadfast plod of mornings,
\nevenings with worn soles,
\na circadian clock with its sense of rhythm
\ninvested in storm-beams.<\/p>\n

A monarch without its antennae
\nhas no sense of place,<\/p>\n

spends migration as the poet
\nwho can\u2019t define a desert,
\ncan\u2019t name a valley,
\ncan\u2019t sleep somberly
\nin the collapsed shadow
\nof the chrysalis.<\/p>\n

iv. The Morphos and Memory<\/p>\n

I startle at their size,
\nall wing, bodies poised
\nlike broken punctuation
\nin a dead language\u2019s poetry.<\/p>\n

They erupt from dreams,
\nnot as insects but as pilgrims
\nwhose wings bear thirsting bodies
\nof water among black expanses.<\/p>\n

Awaken —<\/p>\n

I remember my naptime quilt
\npristine with a pink underbelly,
\nfabric boasting swallowtails, viceroys,
\npainted ladies, all flightless in their splendor,<\/p>\n

how I wouldn\u2019t sleep. How I would spend my life
\npreserving instead a swath of faded cloth
\nteeming with milkweed, wisps of dandelion run-off,
\nfaint lilies suspended in pinkish mire,<\/p>\n

how it took me five years to write this poem,
\nfirst in the form of an essay whose language
\nstagnated in its own motif, then in
\nthe transition between silence<\/p>\n

and having something to say.<\/p>\n

How I will never call this a poem at all
\nbut a migration of self,
\ncircadian elegy, cathartic taxonomy.<\/p>\n

MELINA PAPADOPOULOS<\/strong> is a student at Baldwin Wallace University. Her work has appeared in Jelly Bucket<\/em>, Booth<\/em>, apt<\/em>, and Roanoke Review<\/em>, among others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Melina Papadopoulos i. Serenade for Wolf Moths and Mournful Poets We always return to the moon. It waits howl-spangled, record-scratched across all the best night ballads, cathartic as a cat\u2019s eye taking light through a milky cataract. We become nocturnal … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":7057,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7061","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P15duy-1PT","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7061"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7076,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7061\/revisions\/7076"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}