Butterfly Days

Out-of-focus icing on a cake no one can see or eat

a Princess cake or a Strawberry

window cake

One tree is sugar

One tree is completely covered

The shrubs shake it off

this afternoon

nervous all morning & then

something else

more difficult to describe

a dustup

around a brown & orange aura

or Lorca’s flowers

A swallowtail lands a front foot impossible to 360 shuvit in the gloxinia on the first try

Lorca’s flowers!

Radio silence cuts the clover

or a brand-new podcast

broadcasts everything

around us

Fritillaries sigh in hi-fi

If I had a microwave

I could spend more time

in the backyard

Drink

the same cup of coffee

the same backyard

Nectaring on a trellis if I had a trellis

Fat pinks

nose open every

piece of grass

You can’t do that in a microwave

Summer noise shoved through a cassette deck in the underleaf & still those butterflies are not the Circle Jerks

High on Molly

into ammonia fertilizer

or whatever

is there beneath the sink

or the smallest movement ripples through leaves

One day is static

One day is completely gone

The swimming pool is the lawn

blue-green & no

diving board

I have a guest pass

a white sound

when I move my hands

above my head

Dusted before 10 a.m.

Butterflies are all bring your friends

Butterflies are all chlorine will highlight your summer hair but don’t drink it whatever you do or don’t do

Neon tubing smolders in the fennel

or some other lightbulbs

you’re not supposed to touch

with your fingers

Brite White

Peach Pink &

Rose

Look what I brought you

It’s all just graffiti

I want to write your name in aerosol along the pinnule of a fiddlehead

All-city in the air

Antennas discharge in the yard & won’t be replaced

A cloud moves

the colors around a

jittery ball

That’s not

just green

it’s

StreetGlow green

Midges scribble

in the real summer grass

or white fiberglass

made out of laundry detergent Saran wraps

the sunflowers

One butterfly is coming right back

One butterfly is no comply

They don’t die

They stay above the day in a scrum

Glass wool

pulled apart & sprinkled

over the yard

flicks the outer margins

If you’re so terrified of everything why don’t you just stay inside?

Swallowtails drink glucose

through a straw

Everyone is going to calm down

Everyone is going to calm down