The Glasswing Butterfly

We're not there yet, my brother saysabout the aging path, day-ground crackling with stardust.

My mother's skin is nearly see-throughlike the butterfly with its soldered, stained-glass wings,

fragile as a child the fairies steal, tempting her with cherries.A thought that lets me step aside from pain.

I have always had faith in the intellectual supremacyof earth. Like my mother, it grows strong when he quits

beating her. This also: that often messages meant for otherscome to us in our dreams, which is why

we must remember to recount them. You can askthe tiniest birds to reveal themselves, a kinglet lost in leaves,

my mother, whom I tend to, attend, am tender to for days,shadowing her down the hall as she grips her walker.

I slip on the blue gloves, anoint her private parts with salve,spread honey and calendula on her bed sores,

guide her arms through her sleeves. In the face ofsuch intimacy, how shameless her trust in me, animal-proof

that the body provides. My skin, too, growspocked and tattered. My heart races when I drink gin. The sky

filled suddenly with clouds. Hope for a world slipping out ofmy hands, like the phone does from hers, my voice still in it.