by Alice Sholto-Douglas

In spring, after school, I caught a glimpse
Of the perforated shoebox in the pantry—
That year’s silkworms,
Little French manicure tips,
Wrinkly and white, firm and squirming
Below the lid.

Pines lined the pavements down to where
The mulberry leaves leaked their noxious latex,
Itched my pallid child-palms,
To dissuade me.
But I was—have always been—brazen
When I care a lot.

Deep in the shin-tangle,
Dark berries bruised their stains on my fingers.
What might it be like to dream against such velvet,
Such sweet, soft lumps of mulch in the hot dark—
To be immune to their toxic milk
And drink it down lustily?

I plucked only as many as could fit in a Pick ‘n Pay packet.
The neighbours they belonged to could afford me that.
Then, leaf by leaf, under the box lid,
I posted them in, illicit letters through a door,
Proud nurturer of the wiggling things below—
Too many of them, my mother tells me.
Some of them must go.

At the garden gate, two boys approached me.
They wanted to take them home.
But as they walked away, I heard their talk,
Their fantasies—
Slicing soft bodies into squishy bits,
Squeezing them between a thumb and forefinger,
Bursting them like blisters.

I swear I loved my petal-soft silkworms.
I told them so in a whisper and
Slid the lid back on the box.
Now, they are safe to start spinning,
Gumming up the knotted xanthous skeins,
Sugar pearls entombed in their loose cocoons.
They are still now.

When the moths emerge, furred and feathered,
I will lift them into a new world,
Beyond the box and the manicured lawns,
At the end of the hedge-edged avenues,
Where nobody means any harm.

These are not bloodstains on my hands—
Only fruit ink. Believe me—
A little black, a little blue.
I only did as I was told to.
These meek inheritors would die
Without their alien leaves,
Without me.

But for now, it is summer.
Today, wings will spread, heedless of leashes
Of spider-silk twine.
The mulberry trees are yellowing now,
Sighing jasmine effluvia
Over land they cannot love.

I swear I loved my domestic silk moths,
Their snowy mould and cotton tufts.
Believe me—I didn’t know
The elixir in the box was rotten—
That all along they were risen like dough
To be blighted and forgotten.