Michael Dickman (b.1975)

Butterflies

Sonic drag
and television snow
in the rhododendrons
White scales smudge the windows
Fluttery
It’s all
just description
A wall of butterflies falls apart in the middle of the air or flies back together again like drywall
Their eyes are spackled
All together in a pile above the grass they look fluorescent
Children
coming home from school at noon
Their legs go tick tick
Someone changes the channel inside a cocoon

Butterflies

Sketchy
through a hole in the butterfly day
an orange and yellow
slipstream
Better than birds
Hanging laundry by remote control
Drinking Coca-Cola
and imitating roses in the pink
suburbs
There is no way to guess which way they’ll go just scraps of air and then nothing at all
             like on AM radio
Careful with each other
Hands glued together with Elmer’s
Pinned
to brown particleboard