What is the creature that emerges?
if the wings remember nothing of crawling,
if the body that crawled has grown wings
and the leaves in the stomach have been forgotten,
what is the creature that emerges?
Trapped in a womb of its own making.
The skin of its former self.
It sheds the fibres of its prison.
Does being born erase what has come before?
What organs must remain
for it to be labelled the same being?
If its body is remade and it knows nothing of its past,
what of the creature did the chrysalis preserve?
And is metamorphosis birth or death?
The caterpillar must be buried
in order to gain wings.
Is the absence of self still considered death. If its price is beauty?
What is the creature that emerges?
If the butterfly is unrecognisable to the leaves
and the grass forgets the footsteps of the caterpillar
because the butterfly insists on flying.
What is the creature that emerges?