The Butterfly Machine

I don’t remember when I got involved with disengagement,

if that’s even something one can become involved with.

Yet it’s something I practice regularly now,

 

tapping on the case of my butterfly collection.

“I don’t like being sober or being happy”

was something I actually said,

 

and thinking, even once,

that this was something normal,

entered into the business of manufacturing memory.

 

I set up a little factory and began cranking them out:

fishing in a rowboat off the coast of the Adriatic,

hurling stones into a velvet forest,

 

the giddy screams of pine-sapped children.

All around me I saw these images taking flight,

thousands of metallic monarchs and morphos

 

generated out of vacant space. Releasing them

was my duty - for you to catch and keep in a jar

for a night or two, a nostalgia of sorts.

 

This, of course, left me

with a pen in one hand, a drink in the other,

and the cold whirring of gears in my heart.

Reviews

[E.Potter]

This is a beautiful piece of writing. Good job!

[KStiletto]

The Poem was great thank you for sharing!