Papilio

Lemon-brushed, she has one last trip to make
across pastureland to the wild cherry tree.
Last meal on a frivolous zinnia, torn chiffon at her wing’s end
amber and black turn to bisque on grey appalachiensis.

She shares the feast with me. I peer just beyond her proboscis
as gleefully she sips late summer’s bounty.
Breeze tickles tired thinning locks
lifts her to the next flower.

At the wild cherry when steel circles creep vale-ward
she will place her final transparent orbs
and sleep.
Days pass as bitter acorns in swift cold wind. Dew’s meadow fades.

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Marjorie Gowdy writes at home in the Blue Ridge mountains of Callaway, VA. Gowdy was Founding Executive Director of the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art in Biloxi, MS, where she worked for 18 years. Now retired, she worked in other fields that fed her love of writing, including as a grants writer. Her poetry has been published in the Roanoke Review, Artemis Journal, and Valley Voices (Mississippi Valley State University). Her essays are included in Katrina: Mississippi Women Remember (2007). Gowdy also paints, with a recent work accepted by the Virginia Beach Artists’ Center.