Butterfly

Butterfly

Each night, the picture comes to kill me:

you and the baby, walking to the bedroom.

You tie an American flag around his eyes,

then sit in the kitchen and study your final option,

silver and cold to the touch.

When did the math arrive at this?

How many drunks, flare-ups, divorces,

pregnancies, bad dreams?

Hold an invisible gun in your hand.

Pull the trigger.

Feel how it flexes a muscle all the

way back to the elbow.

The finger cannot do this work alone.

Each night, I stand next to you in a

field in Atlanta as you bring the

metal to your chest, and I ask,

What was your last thought?

Why didn’t you think of calling me?

From Michael J. Vaughn: Collected Poems

Notes: about my dear friend Sharona, who committed suicide ten years ago, along with the kind of random thoughts that go through a grieving mind looking for reasons: the similarity to the final scene from Madama Butterfly, and, oddly enough, an interview with a pitching coach on how throwing a forkball causes wear and tear on the elbow.