Poetry

Butterflyshape

As reflected strangers sprawled and seeped
against blackened blank train windows
I realised I hadn’t seen my mum in weeks

or even thought if the change would show.
It was a precautionary move from surgeons
who took half then half again, skimming through

the sterile routine of scheduled incisions,
mapping the places of her sleep
onto the tinfoil doors of daily medication.

From the platform I saw the elegant feat
of a strategically placed scarf developing
through a range of tasteful fabric colours, each

one grew in pastel recognition, becoming
the reason I sat in the back of her car.
My speechless gap of wondering

how the emissions could travel metre
distances would be filled too late
to alter the instincts of a mother.

The space in her throat was a butterflyshape.
She told me this as I stared faintly at the back of her head.
It marked the half life path that would radiate

outside, forcing my parents to sleep in separate beds
until it finally fluttered out, choked full from taking
five months from a year where she led

herself into a pattern of resolute cake baking
and waiting for news and new recipes to try.
Although I pictured the beating little thing

I couldn’t ask for the colour of the butterfly.
I imagined a foamy cloud caramel,
but the colour was never mine.

It had been nurtured to reveal
in a body scan. The hospital had seen dozens
of radioactive insects and failed to tell

if the uniquely scaled wings - the dips and bends -
told anything about her leave from work.
The returning forgotten friends

that came to drink tea and talk,
the competing petals of pre-ordered flowers,
the constant family dog too old to bark,

I thought it all must add to its colours,
still the moments where veins get painted into life
are not allowed to be found trapped in gauze.

I know she remembers as my eyes slide
from hair framed through the gap in her
headrest onto the passing churn of keyhole headlights.

The lights release into metal and mirror
glass that release into vibrations, all late driving
home but refusing to risk a phone call. The

butterflyshape is flying.

Lewis Haubus