Butterflies in the Thistles

The thistles’ royal globes
stand over the net sceptered child like a parent
The painted ladies dance on the nectar
between the thorns
The sulphurs swirl a dust devil
over the earth’s cracked lips desperate
for a drink of anything other than sun
The spiny winged weeds flourish
swallow the August heat
The abandoned field a deck of rowed
stanchions of combined corn stalks that
trip the twelve-year-old running the furrows
He searches for the viceroy mimicking the
putrid flavored monarch the birds eat once
Milkweed mother’s milk a poison taste the larvae thrive on
The toxin stored in the monarch’s boneless body
Goldfinches’ yellow lightening streaks between the thistle peaks
The birds cat call like a construction site at the passing beauty
Where are the look-alikes
All the orange and black wings
Twins that can be switched at birth
to fool predator hunger
But the boy is not a bird
He can tell he knows one from the other
The one black line they do not share
One the size of first place the other second
The neighbors still call you his name
People amazed twins born a year apart
Model T’s off the same genetic assembly line
the nucleotides aligned
But it is only appearance a transient gift
that is all too transparent
When you reach inside the mirror
the reflection ends
The older brother would never hunt butterflies
He would shag a ball kick a book
ask a girl to meet under the bleachers
meet the principal in his office
The boy spots the unreputed butterfly weaving through the goldenrod
Never landing an allergic dance of avoidance
How can he squeeze into the weeds
and capture the allusion one is not the other
Snag in the net what is not the same
Opposites can look alike
The taste is different