Xanthopan morganii praedicta

Willo Drummond

He tried to tell you it would unfurl

—proboscis curled like a crown

above that velvet brow. Eyes

trained to the moon, parched

heart set on long-awaited sip

of nectar from the gods.

I could have told you I would unfurl

like that long tongue,

under the right gaze, phase

of moon, precise mineral

composition of the air

under Madagascan sun.

All it would take was time

and the will to quiet

sad tongues of mouths

attuned only to ridicule

for the unknown.

Note: Xanthopan morganii praedicta was observed in the wild for the first time in 1992, 130 years after Charles Darwin predicted its existence sight unseen. Though his prediction was met with ridicule at the time, the moth has features exactly as Darwin described them.

WILLO DRUMMOND’s debut collection Moon Wrasse was shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, commended in the Five Islands Poetry Prize for a First Book of Poetry and selected as one of 6 Australian poetry titles to feature in the Aesop Queer Library.