Kimmy Chang
maculinea
after my third molt,
i seep sweet, cloying chemicals—
a shimmering mist of deception,
marking me as kin.
soon, you appear—
appendages trembling—
dazed by my honeyed illusion.
i swell my thorax,
stroke your waxen limbs,
thrum a mimic’s aria
into your spiracles.
fooled, you cradle me
tenderly between mandibles
lover-like—
bearing me home,
deep within your dark nest
where i gorge greedily
on your eggs—fragile, yielding.
my body thickens,
lush, ravenous—
until tunnels echo emptily,
barren of future.
you kneel, reverent and blinded,
while i hang ghostlike,
woven in silken deceit.
until your cautious touch,
an antenna’s brush,
cracks my damp chrysalis—
splintering chitin.
i slip free—a birth cry slicing—
my wings unfurling gossamer,
filling empty tunnels
with fleeting cruelty, beauty.
you stand stunned, trembling,
searching in vain
for the queen i never was—
and the devotion
you should never have given.