Nature Is a Serial Killer

Kathryn Jones

September 22, 2024

Autumn, when the purple mistflower and orange cosmos

take over the garden, standing a foot or more tall,

sweet sustenance for the annual migration.

The nectar calls first the Queens, then the Monarchs.

I walk among the flowers and the butterflies flutter

around me until I feel like I’m in a dream.

I put the Monarchs in my viewfinder, zooming in

on their wings with patterns like stained glass

attached to black-and-white spotted bodies.

Their long proboscis probes the flowers. I focus on

a large Monarch as it begins moving down the stem

of a cosmos. I frame the shot, release the shutter.

Then I see it, a green praying mantis hidden in the leaves,

holding the Monarch with its barbed forelegs,

pulling off the wings and nibbling the soft flesh.

The Monarchs return to the fringed flowers all autumn,

oblivious to what lies below. I hold my camera, waiting

for the moment of capture as the mantises wait for theirs.

Kathryn Jones is a poet, journalist, and essayist whose work has been published in The New York Times, Texas Monthly, Texas Highways, and the Texas Observer. Her poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including TexasPoetryAssignment.com, Unknotting the Line: The Poetry in Prose (Dos Gatos Press, 2023), Lone Star Poetry (Kallisto Gaia Press, 2023), and in her chapbook, An Orchid’s Guide to Life, published by Finishing Line Press. She was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in 2016 and lives on a ranch near Glen Rose, Texas.