by Dion O’Reilly

Something About Monarchs

In the eucalyptus at Pleasure Point, fifty years ago, when I dropped acid, and millions of them whirled around me—the branches laden with ferrous light, air thickened and flickering, the Earth, burning with nasturtiums.

Because I return each day to that grove, I tell you: the millions I once saw are scattered, precise in their solitude, listless travelers from lost countries, stalled on the ground, wings opening and closing like dying breath.

And faraway, like the sound of waves, refugees—bombed hospital wings, children’s wings, dark wings over cities.

Old and sober, I plod this thin trail through pickleweed. Nasturtiums still set the banks on fire, still thrive on ancient stems and leaves turned to soil, on bodies, tender legs, on the dust of a billion wings beneath my feet.

Morning fog—
everything alive
is a ghost