Today's poem is by Laura Foley

Year End
       

I want to bury him
though I doubt it's appropriate
for a butterfly.
Perhaps I'll climb the icy hill,
trudge through woods and slippery snow,
to place him as close as I can to sky,
in the field he would have floated over,
on his way to Mexico,
if October hadn't been too cold for flight.
The orange-and-black-winged beauty
thrived, in his screened-in cage,
lit with purple happy lights,
and fed every day by hand,
his proboscis dipped in honey water,
until, on Christmas day,
he birthed three sacs of sperm,
a rare gift for me these days.
Finding no mate,
he folded his wings and died,
face pressed into the New Year's daisy
I gave him, as a human lover might.

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Copyright © 2024 Laura Foley All rights reserved
from It's This
Fernwood Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission