from Earlier
Rosanna Licari
Metamorphosis*
The night is leaf-filled.
Rambling over
the mandevilla vine
your moving back hints
at the markings of zebra.
A flow of black and white stripes
tracing the chlorophyll and
devouring all you can
in the humid summer
darkness.
Such is the confidence of hunger.
The morning after the feast
a green trance fills
your upside down world —
stillness, the withering of antennae.
A rigid encasement begins
at the head and you dissolve
into a milky embryonic pulp
that forms a silvery bauble.
It will hang for a week and
reflect iridescence:
blue green pink.
Beneath the skin of this,
the change to another life.
The pupa splits,
revealing a touch of dark wing.
You emerge crumpled,
damp for hours. The white dots
on your body and wing margins
anticipate the final stop.
The drying completed and
with a sudden gust of wind
you enter flight.
*The Common Crow butterfly, Euploea core, is found in Australia and South Asia.
The Art of Seduction*
Architecture is precise, considered.
First impressions matter.
Positioning each stick carefully
then stepping back to consider
the total effect.
The bower, two walls of twigs.
An avenue of love.
A female will choose one from many.
Before the entrance,
an array of ornaments à la mode:
a bright blue peg, indigo feathers,
turquoise thread, and the jewel,
a shard of cobalt glass.
Not scattered. Placed. Arranged.
And then reordered.
These are a lure. An aphrodisiac.
And when the female arrives,
his dance begins —
the strut, the bow, the quiver.
Wings reach out wide
as if to welcome, he delivers
calls that rattle and buzz.
Ornament in beak, staring
with his violet eyes,
she will step inside, if
he can charm her.
There are sudden moves
and quick feathery exits.
He’ll place. Arrange.
And then reorder.
An eager partner
poised for a dance
but with another.
*The Satin Bowerbird, Ptilonorhynchus violaceus, is endemic to eastern and south-eastern Australia. It builds and decorates a bower to attract females.
Rosanna Licari is the poetry editor of the online literary journal, StylusLit. Her work has appeared in various journals and anthologies. She has recently completed a Varuna Residential Fellowship to work on her collection, Earlier, which focusses on evolution and the natural world.
