The delicate corpse
rendered in ivory
rather than its familiar

green, the mantis’s
praying days are over,
cradled in the veins

of a milkweed leaf,
which itself will all too
soon expire and fall.

We tend to quickly
bury or burn our dead,
or, in some cases,

strip them to the
essence of bone,
morphing from

cadaver to artifact,
allowing the living
to gaze upon

the scaffolding
on which our skin
selves once draped.

The calm of what
has passed, the beauty
that we may not

have taken the time
to admire when
this sculpture

lived and breathed.
Now we notice.
Now we remember.

Now we go on.