Persona is Born (1)

(Persona is born at the intersection
of concrete and white-winged butterflies.)

Remember when cities were gray; when buildings
loomed over the sky and belched decay
into the face of every passerby?
When they waded through bile (holding
up their pant legs, if they even had any at all)?
You could look down from the moon and poke holes,
sucking houses and little plastic figurines,
you could blow early-morning frost and cigarette smoke
and worm holes and black holes and giggle
when little girls would hold their noses and cough.

And remember when the city turned white.
How the butterflies couldn’t keep camouflaged anymore.
And they died off, and it seemed like ruin was slithering down
upon you.

Well, that was really the grime of hundreds of years slithering
off.

Persona kept a jar full of white butterflies when she was born,
drew pictures and pasted them inside like
the walls of a glass house;
Persona walked outside and let the butterflies taste air.