Butterfly Pin

I saw a butterfly today.

It was stretched out

From wing to wing,

And pinned down on either side.

Its azure body, 

So delicately hung — 

In a white room

On white walls.

Not quite living.

Not quite dead.

Just waiting —

In ineffable silence

Gathering dust —

And fingerprints,

And confessing to the world

Without speaking

Just watching.

As endless waves carry

Endless footprints 

From the sand, to the sea —

My coming, my going.

An entangled affair,

Irrelevant to its glued wings 

That always remain.

A witness to everything,

And nothing.

Just overflowing,

On, and on —

And on forever.

Leaving the rest of us to play

In Lethe’s milky currents.

Dreaming,

As the butterfly just hangs —

Unable to fly.

Its wings,

Almost démodé

And stiff —

Are kept taut in a frame.

Eternally, outstretched

And floating

Through the heavy air.

As glass swirls arrive, 

And disappear

Like cataract apparitions,

Who try to understand

What it’s like

To be contained,

Within these foamy amnesias,

Halfway from the sea,

And halfway from the sand.

Where the butterfly waits —

Sealed in living.

Its beauty

Preserved —

Dehydrated and gaunt

For all to see.