Chrysalis

    1

    It's mid-September， and in the Magic Wing Butterfly Conservancy

    in Deerfield， Massachusetts， the woman at the register

    is ringing up the items of a small girl and her mother.

    There are pencils and postcards and a paperweight——

    all with butterflies——and， chilly¹ but alive，

    three monarch² caterpillars³——in small white boxes

    with cellophane tops， and holes punched in their sides.

    The girl keeps rearranging them like a shell game

    while the cashier chats with her mother： "They have to

    feed on milkweed——you can buy it in the nursery outside."

    "We've got a field behind our house，" the mother answers.

    The cashier smiles to show she didn't need the sale：

    "And in no time， they'll be on their way to Brazil or Argentina——

    or wherever they go——" （"to Mexico，" says the girl，

    though she's ignored） "and you can watch them

    do their thing till they're ready to fly."

    2

    I remember the monarchs⁴ my son and I brought in one summer

    on bright pink flowers we'd picked along the swamp

    on Yetter's farm. We were "city folks，" eager for nature

    and ignorant——we left our TV home——and left the flowers

    in a jar on the dry sink in the trailer. We never noticed the

    caterpillars

    till we puzzled out the mystery of the small black things

    on the marble top——which turned out to be their droppings.

    And soon， three pale green dollops hung from the carved-out leaves，

    each studded with four gold beads——so gold they looked to be

    mineral——not animal——a miracle that kept us amazed

    as the walls grew clear and the transformed things broke through，

    pumped fluid in their wings， dried off——and flew.

    I gauge⁵ from that memory that it will be next month

    before the girls are "ready." I wonder how they'll "fly"

    when there's been frost. "And they'll come back next summer，"

    the cashier says， "to the very same field——they always do."

    I'm sure that isn't true. But why punch holes

    in our little hopes when we have so few？

    3

    Next month， my mother will have a hole put in her skull⁶

    to drain the fluid that's been weighing on her brain.

    All summer， she's lain in one hospital or another——

    yet the old complainer's never complained.

    In Mather， the woman beside her spent a week in a coma⁷，

    wrapped like a white cocoon⁸ with an open mouth

    （a nurse came now and then to dab⁹ the drool）。

    My mother claimed the woman's husband was there too——

    "doing what they do"——though it didn't annoy her.

    Now she's in Stony¹⁰ Brook——on the eighteenth floor.

    I realize I don't know her anymore. When she beat against

    the window to break through， they had to strap¹¹ her down

    ——and yet how happy and how likeable she's become.

    When I visit， I spend my nights in her empty house——

    in the bed she and my father used to share. Perhaps they're

    there. Perhaps we do come back year after year

    to do what we've always done——if we can't make

    our way to kingdom come， or lose ourselves altogether.