WRITERS ABROAD MAGAZINE
The Entomologist’s Dream A Poem by Susan Carey
African Glass Blue, Cinnabar Moth,
Fiery Copper lie in glass chambers.
Desiccated wings ache into movement.
Antennae twitch, exoskeletons tremble,
pierced thoraxes gulp agonising
breaths of sequestered air.
The collector dreams thin, creaking ice.
A summer storm bursts the sticky night;
shatters butterfly boxes open.
Proboscises suck sweat
from the man’s forehead.
Revived, Camberwell Beauty
and Painted Lady jeté
towards the open window.
Mimicry eyes mock him:
The Koh-i-Noor of his collection
settles on the spreading board.
Clammy hands cupped
he leap-frogs! She pirouettes
into the night
her rainforest calling.
Rolling towards him
potassium cyanide stirs
inside the killing bottle.
“I wrote The Entomologist’s Dream after visiting an exhibition of Victorian
Painting at the Royal Academy some years ago. The poem was inspired by the
eponymous painting by Edmund Dulac. Butterfly names are so evocative; almost
poems in themselves. After writing it I felt sorry for the entomologist with his killing
bottle rolling towards him. He only wanted to capture the butterflies’ transient beauty
for himself, as I have tried to do in my poem.”
9|Sept 2014