Back Poem by Morgan Michaels

Back to the skies
noon-darkening butterfly
whose broad stripes and bright stars
and kohled pharaoh's eyes
rub off between the fingertips and thighs.

Bonnie April is over
and mid-summer's bonfires;
the vineyard's furrow now
is filled up with snow
or snow's white imminence.

And that life you leased
wide-winged, sipping flower
after flower, burnt to ashes now;
not to be bitter or sour,
there is a space for you

there, in heaven's fair face-
a minimal gape for you to fill,
a missing puzzle piece
the wide sky needs filled to be complete.
Fly, o butterfly, the time is ripe.