Iridescent Fate

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

Our souls (which don’t exist) are like a moth

Embossed with steel of pin behind the glass,

Displays of them against a velvet cloth

Too kind and soft for gruesomeness, a class

Of its peculiar heartless hobby.  When

They tried to flutter in the net, the man

Ignored their powdery plight.  Like other men,

In fact, he hardly noticed.  When their span

Of wings in death filled up his den, one wall

And more, he noticed them while sitting on

His wide-winged chair, but all in all

They stayed and stared out to no future dawn.

  The moths and butterflies stayed still.  The room

    Stayed still.  He hardly ever thought of doom.

~ Phillip Whidden