We saw her in a wooden box as Doris Longwing.
No animals were killed to be naturalized,
Says the taxidermist, with the exception of a few.

Doris—my mother’s mother—who turned into
A butterfly: white eyes and saffron streaks, reminding
Us that we look nothing like her. Naturalized.

No, unnaturalized. We try to memorize her patterns,
The natural order we sought to learn before this death:
A quaint crucifixion preserved beneath glass.
      

This poem previously appeared in the February 2016 issue of Clementine Unbound.