Newton’s Butterfly
Mary-Kim Arnold
there is no time except that we make it
the years gave Newton a butterfly made of glass
on the beach, a woman walks past dragging a chair by a white rope
the other end of rope tied to the wrist of a girl
girl who shakes her head like a mad dog
girl who is holding a bit of fabric in her mouth
one pant leg rolled up and soaked with ocean water
orange ball adrift on the crest of a wave
orange light these end days
these days are the end of us
she has a face that one remembers from a dream
rounded soft a child’s eyes
she draws her fingernails across her thigh
I look up again and they are not where they were
there is an apple of light left in the afternoon sky
and I think of you, miles away
your sky stretched thin and yellow like harbor glass
you sit at the table collecting moth wings
collecting strips of masking tape to hold it all together
what swells in me, in the bowl of my belly
what lifts
an orange ball of light
an orange lock
the way to understand the location of your bones
is to feel where each of them is burning
Traveler With Top Coat
– after Anne Carson
yes you are a spectral light, a traveler among the constellations
but you take your meals in topcoat and gray gloves
even in the great heat
you float through the archways
you take your hat
Do you look away
Do you clasp your hands
Are you asking or telling
Why do you ask
What I mean to say is that
you leave no traces of your body in my vision
your limbs form paragraphs justified at the margins
stay here, stay with me
this is not the time for stepping back from the vertical drop
all adornments blown back against the wind
objects, illuminated
your spectral light enveloping
and these objects?
Now it rises – this life you could have lived
no longer possible
time makes its relentless path across the sky
but if I lower myself to the ground I can feel the vibrations
of the child I once was
the teeming seas I crossed to reach you
crossing for hours
clasping the hands of my fellow travelers
hold them, I am told, and so I do.
You will need each other, we are told and so
we do.
What I mean to say is that your gray gloves fit my hands without
alteration. What I mean to say is your voice
wraps me like your wool topcoat
and I clutch it
even in such heat
Mary-Kim Arnold‘s writing has appeared online at Tin House, The Rumpus, Two Serious Ladies, HTML Giant, and elsewhere. She has fiction forthcoming in The Pinch Journal and poems forthcoming at burntdistrict. She received her MFA from Brown University and lives in Rhode Island. She blogs at mkimarnold.tumblr.com and is on twitter: @mkimarnold.