All spring, the young girl tended the caterpillars.
\nBeneath the sprawling oak, her father
\nconstructed a tent to keep them safe.
\nAs they chewed the milkweed
\nto stems, she pinched tenderly each slender body
\nand placed them on new leaves.
\nAfter weeks of care, transplanting
\neggs and larvae from the garden to the tent,
\nwatching them spin
\ntheir glass nests, the butterflies emerge
\ndeformed. Like an accordion,
\none\u2019s wings are wet wrinkles\u2014
\nanother\u2019s, underdeveloped, protrude
\nat the thorax like pistachio shells, flapping
\nfruitlessly. Improvising a stretcher
\nfrom a dried oak leaf, her father transfers the flawed,
\nthe parasitic, to the pentas
\nand snapdragons\u2014he whispers I\u2019m sorry
\nto each one as he lifts a piece of pine bark and
\ninto their frail forms presses his weight.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
All spring, the young girl tended the caterpillars. Beneath the sprawling oak, her father constructed a tent to keep them safe. As they chewed the milkweed to stems, she pinched tenderly each slender body and placed them on new leaves. After weeks of care, transplanting eggs and larvae from the garden to the tent, watching […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2272,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[75],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6Jypy-mercy","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18165"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2272"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18165"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18166,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18165\/revisions\/18166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}