Читать книгу A Perhaps Line - Gary D. Swaim - Страница 21

Lighting on bright thistles, aster, and joe-pye weed,

a diminutive Painted Lady thrust an even brasher color

on her world. A flash of orange against prickly reds and

purples.

Morning incandescence unmatched at the sun’s rising.

Though it’s flamboyant orange you first see, mistaking the

black

bruise-looking patches for dark leaves on which she rests,

the light of clearer day shows murky colors with bright—

fearsome beauty.

Someone has said dark stains streaking the butterfly’s wings

come from the male’s violent love making and serve as weights

to keep

his Painted Lady from flying away.