The Butterfly Detective.

Late in the day and you see it,
a butterfly, stuck to the steps and flickering,
its antenna flutter, then stop.

You look in the garden,
at the milkweed you normally would have sheared to the ground,
except for the small chrysalis that has dangled there for weeks.

You figured a weed was worth the life of a butterfly.
The other, planted things won’t mind.
the cocoon is empty. Perhaps this very life

emerged.
and died.
A mystery perhaps. Perhaps the rain. 

There are clues. A torn wing. a fragment of leaf.
But you are not enough of a butterfly detective to read them.
You only know it is dead, a beautiful corpse.

This is not how you imagine them. The beautiful.
They should live forever, although you know the truth.
They never do, except in our hearts.

About this poem. 

I saw the butterfly this morning on my front steps. I thought it deserved a poem.

It’s that simple.

Tom