Play With Butterflies
Time beating behind my eyelids and
the clock's ticking like a slow, steady, thick-syruped throb in
the tight corners of my skull.
outside it is softly bright and crisp like an
ivory woman in sunlight.
five minutes of walking in it and the slow syrup
dissipates into clean sparks that clear my head and
freshen my lungs.
one hour and ten minutes more.
Sitting here,
nothing but a slug hanging over
the chair doing nothing for anyone.
three people all Saturday have needed me to
push a button or hand them a book.
game tonight.
the howling, mad-crazy rush,
the identical shirts,
the throbbing mob united in
competition, aggression, the outcome of
one team outdoing another, one school "besting" the other.
tick. tick.
what I want is a cocoon so light it is like wearing nothing but
gauze that barely touches the skin,
floating in this sunlight,
no clock ticking and no
obligations, just sleeping until
the pressure seeps out of all parts of my body,
my temples opening up like flowers and my joints
spongy enough to soak up water.
perhaps I will grow porous and sunshine will seep
into my blood.
and in my dreaming I will have nothing to do but
wake and wash myself, eat from the trees and
share hot stew with dark-skinned children,
play with sticks in the dirt or
paint stones with berries,
dance by a constant night fire
in nothing but the furs of bears whose
death we honor with our dancing.
drumming
humming
holding a dark child close to me,
his eyes like big white orbs of sky candy,
wet and slippery like darting fish.
alone perhaps.
cabin in a forest.
fireplace.
books and empty pages and plenty of broken pencils.
animals entering and leaving like family.
me in my cocoon until all the heaviness
evaporates and I am awake enough to lead an army into battle.
tea on the roof last night was wonderful.
on the edge of loneliness for the first time in weeks,
it was just what I needed.
The two parts of me dance so unpredictably together.
One moment I feel trapped and bored,
and the tiger in me leaps about looking for new colors,
shooting ideas from her limbs as she springs springs springs
eating up
eating up trees and rivers whole.
she looks for the animals that will sprint and eat life whole with her,
she growls in their faces and scrapes them with her claws so that they
remember that they bleed.
a moment later I am tired,
I am alone and unappreciated,
I have been independent to the point of shooting off the earth.
then all I want is to lie sleepily on the grass and say nothing,
to retreat into silence and the soul of my soul whose tenderness
swallows the words on my lips and if I touched you
you would think a butterfly had landed in your hand.
It's funny but...I am still the tigress, curled sleeping.
and when I move my striped limbs over the earth,
I am still the butterfly, small and silently moving my wings up and down within me, like a child's heartbeat in a silent universe.
I want to tear the skins of numbness from your thick backs,
I want to bite into the thick plastic you have...wrapped yourselves in,
and...when I get down past the flesh of your flesh,
to the blood and bone, to the heartbeat,
I will put my lips to the wound and show you
a new scab.
that is where the butterfly nests:
in your hot blood.
Sixteen minutes now.
Funny how I’ve forgotten the clock and its ticking.
Outside the trees seem rubbed in gold pollen.
Funny, how I’ve weaved my own cocoon.
Dinner soon.
Hot stew.
The dark-skinned child weaving, invisible, through a multitude of legs.
Tonight,
I am too tired to scour the earth shaking awakeness into you.
Tonight, you will not notice me,
Lest you enter the universe’s quiet heartbeat,
Lest you notice the invisible child,
Lest you play with butterflies.