Burial

My child buried a butterfly
in our driveway. One wing
disembodied and perfect,
it lay like a Chinese fan
gloriously open. She crouched
and whispered, I’m afraid
to touch it and I remembered
my father’s body,
his dead flesh speckled,
dread and desire weighing
in my own unmoving arms.

Slowly she lifted a fallen leaf
and laid it over the monarch wing.
A thin black edging still showed,
so she took a sliver of leaf and laid this too,
then a minute pebble – peaked like a star –
There, she whispered. There.
And reached to stroke the long
bone of my arm.