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  • The American Poetry Review

    REMINDING MYSELF THAT WE ARE NOT REMARKABLE

    Sep 01, 2021 1 minute
    CASEY THAYER

    Chasing monarchs in the milkweedyou say , , wanting more.This is nothing unusual.Other children in other gardensare putting noses to horsemintwhere beesto honey. Nothing unusual.The corpse flower, its purple spathean upturned skirt, stinksof rotting flesh to attract beetlesand flesh flies for another chanceto bloom. I must rememberthe dance of strobes in the swarmof lightning bugs is not innate,not a trick, as a scientist claimed,created by our blinking. The fliescopy those around them until theysynchronize. There existsan explanation. If I forget,I’ll waste a summer eveningin the silence of a field’sempty theatre edged by woods,watching the spectacleand thinking it’s a showing onlyfor me. Things die and arereplaced.

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