0015 Frenzy Poem by Michael Shepherd

There’s frenzy in the kitchen:
a pale yellow brimstone butterfly, frantic -
fluttering dashes, dives, attacks,
swerves and retreats
from the naked light-bulb,
again and again drawn by
(is it her?) irresistible beauteous light,
repelled by the passionate heat of (her)
denying presence, cold to her lover…

outside, I’d give it but a glance;
here inside, the agitation is unnerving,
drawing me in as if it bears
a metaphor for life..
a lover that will not learn
that what it most desires
is not to be fulfilled..

I grab a kitchen sieve,
wave it ineffectively,
now talking to the creature like a baby
in some mortal danger –
‘we’re going to save you..’ ‘we’re going to save you..’

suddenly the butterfly,
as if I had uttered the purest prayer (as indeed I had) ,
settles in an instant upon the sieve’s outside,
all passion spent, and
totally at peace; allows
my careful passage to the open air;

leaving some metaphor unformed,
more unresolved questions of myself
than poetry may yield