corrected me if I mistook a tamarin for a marmoset
as I held your hand on the zoo’s path.
You, who studied Tanganyika’s cichlids at 8,
you, mesmerized by coral’s synchronized spawn.
What was it we said
at the entrance to the butterfly garden?
Did we tell you to keep your hands to yourself?
Be gentle with these creatures who can lose
but never regrow scales required for flying?
What made you, future scientist, think
we warned you of a power
only you possessed–the curse
that would ground all butterflies?
For years, we lived in ignorance,
your eyes closed tight, your grimace,
the way you pulled your arms in tight,
when a Monarch or Swallowtail
approached.
Now, in your lab
as you unwind genes,
fill the gaps left by failed
curiosity, in your fever dreams
where you imagine samples
spoiling next to your too-warm body
I wonder if you feel the shadow
of that time when you imagined
yourself the only one–
as if we don’t all have
the power to destroy, as if
we are not all terrified.
