Poetry
Butterfly Solipsism D.R. JAMES
A butterfly’s flapping over Costa Rica, it’s sometimes hypothesized, can initiate the chain that leads to tornados in Toledo, hopping and ripping the heart from every-other quotidian home. Or maybe its deft stretch-and-glide might instigate a violent Mississippi’s surprising rise beyond its otherwise stolid realm—the dainty queen behind that vast rebellion. So I suppose I could blame this monarch that reigns today’s thermals, that just licked six purple puffs in beach grass then juked my breezy mind, for the nicknamed waves of catastrophe predicted to sweep the sleeping Gulf, the nightly news even proving it via weather patterns green-screened before the stocks and sports. Instead I’m turning a grateful face toward the nor’easter breaching the stony coast of my brain: when it rattles shutters to sash to rafters I’ll be unlatching the deadbolts, throwing open the windows, readying the musty guest bedroom of my heart in welcome. —First published in A Little Instability without Bird (Finishing Line Press, 2006)
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