Two weeks before you were born, the butterflies
hatched. First caterpillars in a plastic jar, feeding
off some bouillon cube, and finally inching
to the lid, housed, armored—and you,
precariously growing, wombsick and fragile
fetal echocardiograms, ultrasounds, test after
test— in those final weeks, the appointments
heaped—any day could be the day. When it wasn’t
we’d come home and check the chrysalides.
One day, we woke to emergence—

painted lady after painted lady,
drying on netting.
but there was one left after the others
began to float the enclosure. One clung
wings crumpled like a bad draft
that missed the trash. We couldn’t bear
to put him outside on a leaf for bird
or lizard. We kept him in the netting,
sliced fresh fruit daily, and fished him gently
out once or twice a day, his legs resting
on my finger, in my palm while we watched
a movie, then I placed him on my stomach:
a round world he could safely explore.
He died the day before you were born—
I was afraid he was an omen.

Rebecca Griswold holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College. Her debut book, The Attic Bedroom, is available from Milk & Cake Press. Her poems have appeared in The Missouri Review, The Cincinnati Review, Cimarron Review, Superstition Review and others. She owns and operates White Whale Tattoo in Cincinnati.