My Mother Says She Misses the Old Me

Butterflies can’t fly when they’re cold.

They need warmth, an ideal temperature

of eighty-five degrees.

They don’t just drink sugar water, either.

Sometimes they sip on mud puddles

for minerals and salts.

Their wings are meant to be transparent,

but as they age, the chitin falls off and reveals

colored scales.

It’s not all about the chrysalis. Ugliness,

too, seizes all creatures, and I don’t know

if I was ever whole.