Ben Heller Week 9- Mona Arshi's Entomological Specimens

  When I first read Mona Arshi’s Entomological Specimens, I was dumbfounded. I simply couldn’t understand what the author was trying to convey through her references to insects and pinning corpses in a quiet room of muted color, finding tranquility in the seemingly macabre. Then, upon failing to find an explanation online, I re-examined the poem. The fact: yes, this poem is out of my league. However, I was able to find a meaning in the text. Arshi is writing about young love, naïve love, which encapsulates beauty and ecstasy, yet which can quickly turn into bitter resentment. The author would need “gin” or “vodka” to relax in the course of such events. She would be so battered and bruised, so mishandled by another, that she would need to imbibe to once again relax. She is fascinated by the willingness of the young to jump in, to commit fully to an experience they still know little about, referring to the “butterflies mounted by an amateur”. This experience also mirrors the experience in Arshi’s own life within the text. She stands there with her love interest, possibly readying herself for a date, and finds their foible. They are “transfixed”. Arshi’s shudders at the irony of her situation. She prepares herself to undergo the tortuous process of love, and all the possible heartache and angst that comes with it. Even the lashes, which she seeks to wear, become imbued with the qualities of the insect in the jar. The specimen (the lash) appears to be stationary, however, just like the leg of an insect, she sees a twitch out of the corner of her eye. The eyes are truly the window to the soul then. Arshi has an out–of–body experience which comes when she doesn’t even realize that she is hesitant, that her eye is twitching.

“Simply leaving specimens in a cyanide jar for a while sometimes will relax them, but this method is no reliable”

Centre of Insect Systematics

You will need to be pinned in the mi-

ddle of your thorax. And did you

know, that gin is preferable to vodka

in the relaxing jar? I once saw butterflies

mounted by an amateur; glassed too late-

they became infested by tiny insects.

I look over and you are transfixed-

composed. Perhaps it’s all the order-

the systems in this quiet and simple

world of corpses? Later, I saw spliced

spiders displayed on framed plastic slides.

I am choosing a pair of lashes that I

will wear for you. In the corner of my

eye  I thought I saw one twitch.

Ben H