Beside the river
we knelt in rocks
to watch the chrysalis—
unmoving hardened skin
attached to a slender
willow spike, black bits
of excrement scattered below—
and though the metamorphosis
is slow, certainly not
something done by dinnertime,
for ten minutes we crouched around
the crusty case and wondered
at the fuse, the force,
the miracle happening inside.
Was whatever was in there
even alive? I could not help
but think of how our bodies
look from day to day the same,
but inside our skin, soft as it is,
we’re being slowly, miraculously,
even now rearranged.