Martine Bellen is the author of seven poetry collections, including Ghosts!; The Vulnerability of Order; Tales of Murasaki and Other Poems, winner of the National Poetry Series Award; and Places People Dare Not Enter. Her poetry has been included in several anthologies, among them This Art: A Copper Canyon Ars Poetica Anthology, and she has received an American Academy of Poets Award. Among her other works are a novella, 2X(Squared), and the libretto for Ovidiana, an opera based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses, performed in New York City and Philadelphia.

White Butterfly

by Martine Bellen

If every butterfly were smoke, would all perception
Fall to smell? If every wing were paper-white, would

All perception end in sight?
Stitch of Michelin lace or brood of Phoebus Parnassian.
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