"Madame Butterfly" by Kai Tumaneng

Madame Butterfly

The butterfly’s been living in your yard.
You can watch it from behind your window.

It travels in these airy stop-motion
swoops, dipping into the navels of azaleas.

It settles electric on a stalk of goldenrod; it
outshines your whole garden’s color spectrum.

It’s at fault for drawing your eye. Its DNA had
painted it to imitate a more dangerous animal.

The fevered beating of its wings against your cupped
palms are eyelashes sweetly batting your palms.

The nature of your hands is to
choke what fits inside of them.

So on your corkboard, a pair of pushpins
spread-eagle a bright eyeful into shot.

It wriggled in the dirt white-fuzzed and ugly;
shed and digested and tore itself from itself.

Its lifelong flight has piloted it towards this:
to a body splayed out bloodless and pleasant
for you, never permitted to rot.

Kai Tumaneng

Kiana Tumaneng is a University of South Florida graduate based in the Tampa Bay area, with a lifelong infatuation for poetry and prose.

Headshot Credit: Edward Tumaneng and Adriana Ladera

Photo Credit: TLC Photography