Thoughts on Swallowing a Butterfly

Butterflies,

such a fragile incarnation

of what went before.

Warriors, according to the Mayans, 

dead warriors ready

to be transformed,

transformed into butterflies.

Butterflies, 

surely too fragile 

to make warriors,

too easily destroyed

in their new metamorphosis.

But  they can wait

for their next transformation

So take care if you swallow a butterfly.

Butterflies,

vigorous egg layers

that can reproduce themselves,

warriors,

mutating again to find

new ways to fight back,

to invade the invaders,

enslave the enslavers,

exploit 

the new possibilities.

So take care if you swallow a butterfly.

And I can wait.

I have been waiting a long time

to see Henry Kissinger choke

on a butterfly.

I can wait.

Perhaps there’s still hope 

that the butterflies

will worm their way inside

and destroy them all.

I can wait.

So take care if you swallow a butterfly.

First published by Vanguard Press in Rise Anthology, 2017

http://www.vagabondbooks.net/