When God made butterflies,

the devil grew quite jealous

of these divine flits of fancy,

and so he crafted a like creature,

to inhabit the darkness.

Furry, brown and white,

grey and dappled night dancers,

which he set free in the world,

to rule his dark domain.

But when they saw the brightness

that could not touch them,

and make them as beautiful as

their daytime counterparts

who snoozed in the beds of tulips,

they flung themselves suicidally

into any light they could find.

Each hoping for a transformation

from the devil’s shunned design.

Alas they burned up against

the incandescent glass and fell

wingless to perish in non-heavenly bodies

under the hungry beaks of the birds.

Thus back into hell they go,

where the devil pins their souls,

to another set of dark wings,

to waste on porch lights,

and streetlamps in their endless

futile attempts to be something

better in the hierarchy of life

by-Matthew F. Blowers III