Abigail Cloud

The Oracle’s Stenographer Renames Lepidoptera

But the O will not get on board. Points
to the ironwood and intones Pleasant
Dagger. To the stalks by the road:
Doubtful Apamea. They catch
in the veranda’s corner webs.
The Stenographer sees the spider
retreat and names the invader: Toxic
Veil. Names the anti-aphrodisiac
secretors Buzzkill. What Pearl strikes
its neighbor? What Bride evades
a devotee? Someone, Linnaeus,
probably, ignored the obvious—
the genital file sawing into the pupa,
the unraveling hair-pencils and their
tranquilizers. A predator is a predator,
its nuptial gift a Chemical War.

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Abigail Cloud is the Editor-in-Chief of Mid-American Review and teaches full time at Bowling Green State University, from which she received an MFA. Poetry credits include The Gettysburg Review, APR, Pleiades and The Cincinnati Review. Her poetry collection, Sylph, won the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize and was published in 2014 by Pleiades Press.