Metamorphosis

Kathryn Jones

November 19, 2023

Sometimes I wished you dead and myself, too,

Than be locked in this purgatory.

I have watched your metamorphosis

From twenties to middle age to the edge,

Hoping to see butterfly wings emerge

But I see only the cocoon of our linked being.

Sometimes I want to break it open,

Reveal what is to come next even if I am afraid,

Because the waiting, the waiting, the waiting

Is like withering from within, wondering 

What might have been if we had wings

And could flutter away on a warm summer wind.

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 an upcoming chapbook, An Orchid’s Guide to Life, to be 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.