An Exposed Dorian Gray

Engulfed by wings, she sits so quaint—

a nude doll thrown into Darwin’s chair.

It’s as if she evolved from the chair or

the chair evolved from her—both tadpoles

with reptilian features emerged from the

Sumerian Tablets.

She’s a poet, unrhymed, yet conventional,

a replica of the gods. Formed in the image

of Hera, she awaits the world’s great crime

of lechery—adulterous religions disputing

the unknown, never ending, never ending.

A master of natural selection, previously

cocooned butterflies coronate her. Their

wings flutter by the seconds and seconds

evolve into days and days evolve into years

and years evolve into death.

Too short lived, the previously cocooned

butterflies age much faster than she—

Proving Einstein’s Theory of Relativity

to be correct, they undulate and rapidly

mature at high altitudes.

She is now cocooned to Darwin’s chair, raw,

exposed while the freedom that surrounds

mocks her like voices of Pharisees.

It’s as if her beauty evolved from God,

or God evolved from her beauty.

Like Dorian Gray, she corrodes, evolves

slowly with each year—time’s cruel cycle.

She yearns to leave society’s cruel cocoon.

She yearns for the Great Metamorphosis.