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Swallowtail
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The blue butterfly emerges along the path in the dunes
low to the ground near Queen Anne’s lace:
polyxenes, swallowtail
whatever name you call her,
she is like the dust on your ankle in the heat of July.
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An early slipper moon, Venus
each one present in the other’s view.
Years ago men wrote about the moon,
called her Cynthia, as if it were a woman so close to their heart
held in early autumn like the forever beat
of high summer when clothes fall away from the body
in some sort of sad departure.
.
An early green tiny worm made its way
into my home, and I opened the door and set it free.
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Gloria Monaghan is a Professor at Wentworth University. She has published five books of poetry. Her poems have appeared in Alexandria Quarterly, NPR, Poem-a-Day, Nixes-Mate, Mom Egg Review, among others. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and the Massachusetts Book Award. Her book False Spring was nominated for the Griffin Prize.
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North of Oxford 