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  • Cocoon, and: Chrysalis
  • John Bonanni (bio)

Cocoon

Inside Dad, the butterfly nibbles with condescension. Dad’s mouthhas become a motor & when he bares his teeth the alternatortightens with the hinges.      Dad goes to the dentist to talk about the hinges.When he comes home with a case of grease, the butterflymakes a breeding ground. Eggs are fertilized in each synapse.

A soft shell thread-breaks, cracks into flicker, flame plasma, conflagrated,egg broken into fire.      Dad goes to the doctor to talk about the butterfly.The doctor’s eyebrows make tiny pivots. Another angle.He looks confused in his lab coat, each white wrinkle a question mark.

Dad takes a night walk. Mom looks out the windowto a receding fog.    The butterfly that planted itself in Dad’s brain nibbles,flutters its way into the frontal lobe, looks back with fury. Mom opens

the window, whispers to the butterfly, You’re not welcome here.& Dad. Dad takes a walk so that he can descend into each star.

Chrysalis

On the couch, Mom knits a net from frayingyarn & ties it to a wooden pole. She rises from the couch.Her eyes are two arrows. [End Page 97]

I cover my lungs with rubber cement & I ignitethem with a blue Bic lighter. The screen door creaks at each hinge.Outside, I walk for miles & miles to buy smoke signals.

I walk back to the house where Mom left a hole in the screenwhen she ran from the house to our front lawn. She triesa horizontal side-swipe with her net. The butterfly takes off.

Mom asks for help. From the street, I blow a weak signaltoward her direction.

The signal rises in pillows. I don’t how, it says to the yard. [End Page 98]

John Bonanni

John Bonanni lives on Cape Cod where he serves as founding editor of the Cape Cod Poetry Review. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in CutBank, VerseDaily, Hayden’s Ferry Review, North American Review, and Washington Square Review. His essays have appeared in Tupelo Quarterly and the Kenyon Review.

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