Ornament

by Christina Linsin

Once married, she pinned

his butterflies,

hung them

where northern light

would show their best advantage,

capturing hues glinting

from their wings.

In numbing draughts

from fermented flasks,

his pinned and threaded

chitinous wings

rattled off thick tales —

adventure they could retell

only in past tense.

All the lipping

of unmitigated apologies

buffered the cavalier slope,

good intention

fed his scales

opiate queues of lingerers.

His pinnacled beauty

would be forever preserved.

Motes gathered sparsely

in memoriam of what he lost,

while tiny proboscises

only remember

drinking summer.