Tuesday, September 29, 2020

I guess you call it a butterfly


You watch your boy fuse with a PC, 

the boy you've picked flowers with, 

the boy who now mocks you

the one you think can't be him,

the boy you sat in trees with.


And you are right, it is not him,

this boy a humbug or whatever 

you call a critter that's stopped eating, 

that hangs upside down from a twig, 

that mutates with no aspect of 

a former incarnation.


So you repel the urge to place your hand 

on his shoulder, buck the wish to kiss

his cheek just one more time for

old time's sake, bury your need

to pull him back into the world 

you once were bound in.


You accept that world now lives 

only in your mind.

Sure, he recalls some things-- 

the pictures you show him serve

as proof, like the rings of a tree, 


when once you lifted this boy 

from his crib 

and your lives felt opulent 

and the boy looked so beautiful in blue.