NATURE STUDY

First published in 'Another Fourth Poetry Book', OUP 1989

This butterfly
we couldn't identify
    pitched
its bright tent
on a roadside flower.

For a full minute
outstretched wings
    bloodied
the morning air
in studied symmetry.

Our eyes ached
with raw colour,
    remembered
pattern and shape
against eventual flight.

It drifted away
and precise geometry
    lingered
like an after-image
in the yellow heat.