We watched a tiger butterfly
peel away a husk more shroud
than womb—antenna folded
all wrong and a wing withered
like the hand of an unclothed
mummy.
It would die, surely.
It had no place in this world—
we cannot place hope on
a butterfly’s broken wings.
That’s not how all of this
is supposed to work.
But whatever life it drained
from its captive skin was enough.
Whispers of legs refused to let go.
Slowly antennae found
themselves and felt their sense
of place—
to communicate in airy
butterfly words dreams
to fill space with colored scars
we thought had crippled
and doomed it.
And when it gripped the air
with its resilient fragility
it flew and it flew and it flew
