The Butterfly is Victim to My Haste

Zhuang Zhou, the butterfly is victim to my haste.

When the dragon’s-mouth and grass pink open in the wetland and I, driving in my car,

winding home, slowing before the cracked pavement at the sunken train track, hear the pock

against the windscreen.

bruxist, Tiger Swallowtail

sick with dice

leaps in jags like a burst kite

studding its soured eggs in a canopy of thought. I see my mother on the threshold,

come in, come in.

Many years have passed since, but now the house is shelled out and the thick clear plastic

billows against the bare frames. The floorboards upstairs are pried out and I see the floating

doors of our bedrooms. Your sister is here somewhere, she says.

My mother grips me outside, trembling at the monstrous thing.

She sobs—

What can we do?