The Butterfly and the Coachwhip

A little pink butterfly

Flaps its delicate wings

Riding the wind to find

A place it can safely rest.

It lights upon a reed

Moving softly back and forth

In the light morning breeze.

Beneath the reed, a coachwhip

Swims in the river current

Dusky rose, sleek and intent.

The butterfly slowly flaps

Still settled on the oscillating reed

And a little pink butterfly dust

Sifts through the air currents

Down

     Down

             Down

                     Down

                              Down

And the snake’s tongue darts

The particles out of the air.

“MMMMMmmmmmmm”

Breathes the coachwhip.

The butterfly is startled

And lifts off of the reed.

The shadow of a sparrow

Passes overhead, momentarily

Blotting out the sun.

This is how small and delicate

The butterfly is – a sparrow

Can shade its view of the sun.

The butterfly quickly lights again
Trembling in fear of the sparrow

And tries to look like a flower.

“You should move lower”

Whispers the serpent

“Reed blossoms are down here

Not up there.” This is a lie

But the butterfly isn’t sure.

She can see no blossoms anywhere

And she wasn’t alive last spring.

She moves down a few inches.

“A little bit mooooooore,”

Breathes the snake, tongue flicking.

Now the musky scent of the butterfly

Has become almost maddening.

The butterfly is afraid, but

The voice of the coachwhip

Is hypnotic, and she moves down

Before she knows what she’s doing.

The snake’s flicking tongue

Touches the edge of her pink wing

And she trembles again in fear
And with something else – what is it?

A kind of hunger and thirst
She’s never felt before, and

She suddenly feels bone tired.
She has flown alone for days.

Flying any further is impossible.

She actually sighs with relief

When she feels the snake’s

Breath envelop her, its jaws closing

And its tongue flicking, flicking.