"Rather than suggesting that all mayflies are female, I am suggesting that all mayflies have two specific characteristics in common with some female fashion models: ostentatious finery and anorexia."
But as I noted, they only stop eating in the very brief and final stage of their development (when they don't even have a mouth to eat with), after years of eating just fine. Unless you clarify that, the poem flirts with inaccuracy.
We'll have to disagree about whether comparing them to gauzy and anorectic fashion models is as suitable for the male mayflies as it is for the female, though in either event I still don't see how likening mayflies to fashion models produces any metaphorical or poetic resonance.
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