Apology to the Butterfly that Lived

i can’t feed you when you starve so stubbornly legs folded like a lawn chair prone to probing fingers always too small to touch i am human: neglect and love and saving you anyway as your body buckles in cruel winter i’m sorry my wax-gilded icarus kept pretty in pain dying is return to the chrysalis, they say do you want to go home? or will you hook your foot to my lip ignore the teeth behind it? i wonder if i am that cruel god you see / when your split tongue goes loose in your mouth

— Freya Turnbull, Onslow College