after Gerald Stern The insect was yellow with crumpled-black banded legs and shellacked back that would outlast us and wistful eyes from what I could discern on that trail between fields, and we laid him out in the open air under a sky fast-blue with change, wedging a leaf beneath his triple-belted belly so he didn’t rest on plain dirt, and we placed two cloverblooms by his head and he was old you said, could tell by how definite the stripes were, how complete the patterns bold and dark, almost engraved, and he was beautiful in that pasture… Read more →