The Atlantic | March 2003 | Mourning Cloak

Contents | March 2003

More on poetry from The Atlantic Monthly.

The Atlantic Monthly | March 2003

Mourning Cloak

(Nymphalis antiopa)

by Christina Pugh

.....

Hear the author read this poem (in RealAudio)

How it burdens, under glass:
the gray shingles of the wings
pressed from flight, slate
or wood grain
once thinned to buoyancy
when this butterfly
peppered streams,
its cloak hemmed
in near glint, grief
worn as lightness,
its crape wild
in the open air
between two sleeps.

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Christina Pugh is a visiting assistant professor of English at Northwestern University. She is the author of the chapbook Gardening at Dusk (2002).