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charles p. r. tisdale
great spangled fritillary
Speyeria cybele
Puberty
Is a moon
Before the full
Only half open
As I reach
For my mother's lingerie
On the floor of her closet
Where the fruit of knowing
Is both as fritillary
And native
As peeking at one
In a National Geographic
Or around the corner
Of Playtex and the slit
In a summer's blouse
Sexual identity
Being the secret
Of the recumbent statue
In the Villa Borghese
Where a mnemonic spider
Traps in his silken web
The wingless cybele
Fearfully silent
On Sundays
Spying on
Her spangled pith
And her fireworks
Of caught liberty
Shooting upward
In courting spirals
These tawny males
And golden females
Showering color
From the forewing
Of a great lunar gland
Whose broad light band
Is as submarginal
As a boy's hands
On Victorian lace
Wondering how
The genetic shame
Opens and closes
Its racial scent
In splays of pheromones
On chitin and china
While she flutters
Around the table
I sit under
(Perching or preying?)
The rosary of herself
And the many beads
She could choose from
But this one zygote
Her child
My mother
The miracle
Of having always been
The pupa within her ovary
And brain
When she stopped long enough
Among the false dragonheads
To conceive of me
And my conception
copyright 2000 charles p. r. tisdale
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