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Did You Order Butterflies?
Kathleen Cain

Yes, I must confess, it was me—or, should I say, it was I?
Either way, blue morphos, enough to fill her darkened room
with light, the way the first bush pilots flying over the Amazon
rain forest once mistook their wings—so many in migration and
all reflecting light—for sky. Imagine: cruising along, then suddenly
as if you were upside down, terrified that the sky had shifted.
Not knowing where it went, or how to get it back. Not knowing
where you were. Or are. That’s why I ordered this roomful of
butterflies for my mother, sequestered here at The Arbors, another
name for The Home of Lost Memories. They’re her favorites today,
blue morphos, even though they’re not native, even though (how heaven
knows) she can still say their name. A roomful. Perhaps they will
hover and cause her to look up and remember the sky.

—
Kathleen Cain is a poet and nonfiction writer. Two of her poems were recently included in the “Forces of Nature” art and poetry show at the Windsor, Colorado Art & Heritage Center. Another entitled “Frostpoint” appeared in the Nov/Dec 2021 issue of Colorado Life. She is also the author of The Cottonwood Tree: An American Champion (2007), a nonfiction book selected as part of the Nebraska 150 Books Project, recognizing 150 years of statehood. A native Nebraskan, she lives in Arvada, CO.

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Have you read these poems:
How to Do Anything Better by Peggy Perdue
Cat in Quarantine by Michael Salcman

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