The Blue | The Nation

If they have come for the butterflies then

bless their breaking hearts, but the young pair is

looking nowhere except each other's eyes.

He seems like he could carry them both

over the street on great wings of grief tucked

under his coat, while all around them float,

like wisps of ash or the delicate

prism sunlight flashing off the city glass,

the orange-yellow-black-wing-flecked monarchs.

Migrant, they're more than two dozen today,

more long-lived than the species who keep

to the localized gardens--they're barely

a gram apiece, landing, holding still for

the common milkweed that feeds their larvae,

or balanced on bridges of plumegrass stalks

and bottle-brush, wings fanning, closing, calmed

by the long searchlight stems of hollyhock.

If they have come for the butterflies then

why is she weeping when he lifts her chin?

He looks like he's holding his breath back--

or is he trying to shed tears, too? Are

any left? He's got his other hand

raised, waving, and almost before it stops

the taxi's doors flare on both sides open.

Nothing's stirring in the garden, not us,

not the thinnest breeze among the flowers,

yet by the time we look again they've flown.