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Black bars expanding
      over an atomic-yellow ground — feelers retracted —
the monarch lay flat on the street
       and did not move at all
when I lifted it
       onto my spiral
notebook

     and did not move the whole length of the block
during which I held the purple laminated

cover still as
    possible —
my gaze
     fretting the edges of
the wings, ruffling the surface where it seemed
     light from another century
beat against those black bars —yellow, yellow, gorgeous, in-
                                                                            candescent—

     bells, chimes, flutes, strings —wind seized and blown
open —butter yellow, fever yellow,
     yellow of acid and flax,
lemon and chrome
     madder, mikado, justic, canary —

yellow the singers exhale that rises, fanged, laughing,
     up through the architraves and out (slow) through the hard
                                                                                   web

the rose-windows press
     onto the rising gaze,
yellow of cries forced through that minds design,
     like a clean verdict,
like a structure of tenses and persons for the gusting

     heaven-yellow
minutes (so many flecks, spores,
     in the wide still beam of sun)
     or the gaze’s stringy grid of nerves
spreading out onto

    whatever bright new world the eyes would seize upon —
pronged optic animal the incandescent thing
     must rise up to and spread into, and almost burn
                                                                       its way

clear through
     to be.