خلخال

For my momma, for Stacy. Inside the human body, is a gigantic butterfly. There, in every chest cavity is a breathing butterfly. A collapsible one. A fluttering butterfly. When I was 6 or 7 years old, I found a butterfly that was approximately the size of my face. I was with my momma, in the lush gardens that covered half of the campus where she was teaching. The butterfly was larger than my much too much tiny palms. Already dead, I carried it home and placed it in a large and empty jar hoping it would breathe again. Hoping it's wings would flutter. I still remember the black fabric-like-to-the-touch-torso of the butterfly. I remember its belly, still and moquette-like. It did not awaken. It, sort of, crumbled and collapsed in the jar. Somehow, there is in my mind some memory of blackness on my fingers. From the butterfly torso?  I don’t know, but I know the jar, the patterned wings, my imagination of how it would awaken – resurrected – and breathe again to fly out