So the Moths Come Slaloming out of Hollow Trees

as do the butterflies, the so-called spring azures, a brilliant confetti falling, swung up and sailing, fending off the swift parabolas

of birds, who hunt but fail to catch that odd, unreachable blue. The magnolia, who held for months her buds

in grey down coats, now lets their skin peek out, blushed, vestal—

what's on its way? The coltsfoot seems poised to exhale

when an April snow flops down, muting it. The azures, who overwintered, anyway, just for these three days,

just to lay eggs in spring, expire. Really, only the mourning cloaks flit out of their hollows dressed for the day, with those laced white tips

on black wings wavering from a branch—what fresh entertainment, that the year's only snow should come so late. The weather must have wanted, as everyone does,

more gore. It must have longed to be newsworthy— to be as astonishing as the moths, or as Jesus,

emerging out of some hollow, radiant and frail.