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Alina Kalontarov
Visitors
The children buried a butterfly
in the backyard. In the morning
they remembered, dug it up to see
what dying had done but by then
it was long gone. I had no explanation
except the memory of the day we buried
you. It rained like in the movies
and we pinned you to the earth
with stones. I didn’t visit enough
in your final years but when I visit
your grave now, you’re not there.
And isn’t that just life and death
for you? One always shifting its weight
to the other foot. The butterfly’s gone
searching for new wings, I tell them.
What I mean is, the dead don’t like to stay
dead. It never ceases to baffle the living.