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Exploring the world, one voice at a time.
Of & To British Butterflies
The warming and dry.
Not only those sands, the dunes
heaped and rounded, but here.
Where the umbrella serves as cover
or cane, to gesture and point, left
in the stand by the door, its folds
with beads found between. And not.
For: days and days and days
of no rain and the open collar
and the rolled sleeve.
And only for now the speckled wood,
the large skipper, the ringlet
with its umber-colored wings outspread,
flash
of yellow with white center,
and, also, the large white
and the small white
and the green-veined.
Ah, the green-veined — fragile moss lining
the northern paving stone
or the opal!
In the gutter, the two sparrows flop
and topple and lie spent as you may.
We will wish to intervene but know not
to touch, all that matters
coming off on our hands.
©2018 by Kelly R. Samuels
Kelly R. Samuels lives in the Upper Midwest. Her poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net and has appeared or is forthcoming in various journals including The Carolina Quarterly, Rappahannock Review, Sweet Tree Review, Salt Hill, and RHINO.
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