Jumping the Cardboard

Annie Dillard notes that a male
butterfly
will ignore a living female
of his own species

in favor of a painted cardboard one
if the cardboard one is big,
bigger than he is,
bigger than any real butterfly could ever be

He jumps the cardboard
—over & over

Meanwhile nearby,
the real living female
butterfly
opens and closes her wings in vain…

In humans, this phenomenon
where lovers seem “larger than life”
is termed idealization

And I just saw it in a therapy session…
The unbounded woman he was idealizing
and trying to merge with

--you could see it was never going to work.
Meanwhile, he continued to ignore
the woman who was actually loving him,

Here, we seem to be witnessing a tragic
form of love on the hoof, for love and 
madness can be kissing cousins.

And when we fall into love’s madness
even butterflies can get crazy 
and follow erotic illusions.

In fact, I’ve fallen for the human
version of this one myself: 
jumping the cardboard.