Monarch Butterfly

Özge Lena

Think:

you’re less than half

a gram with bronze dust

that sprinkles & sprinkles

brightly on the dark petals

from your metamorphosed

orange-red wings with black

veins, with innocent white

spots on the edges to fly

for a few weeks.

But then

changes the clouds,

changes the air, rains,

then changes the tastes

into hot venomous juices,

and you struggle to change

too, yet you’re too slow, slow

with a couple of thin papery

things to catch any storm.

There comes a day that

you fade away like

never existed.

Published in Issue No. 3, Pulsus Litterae, December 1st, 2024.

Özge Lena is an Istanbul-based poet & writer. Her poems have appeared across seven countries. She was nominated both for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Özge's poetry was shortlisted for the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition and the Ralph Angel Poetry Prize in 2021, then for The Plough Poetry Prize in 2023, and for the Black Cat Poetry Press Nature Prize in 2024.