Storm In a Butterfly House

It rained for 3 days, drenching torrents plunged down as if a dam had breached. There was some local flooding but by and large only minor damage a lot of litter and flotsam though ‘sky wreckage’ some called it. The butterfly house was swamped, its netted walls were ripped ragged by broken tree limbs, the seams in the wooden roof split apart and a wild, wind-riding rain rode in. Purple Admirals were beaten down by the gusting blows, then drowned. Painted Ladies were murdered their mangled decorative forms no longer cosmetics. Longwings no longer flew but in death, swam limply in the splashing puddles. A disarray of broken wings carpeted the deluged floor. Somewhere in this caged house sodden chrysalids sway upon fractured twigs; eventually there will be fluttering wings, but not here in this ruined shelter were the air still drips wetly onto unreceiving and unmoving antennae.