Louis McKee
The New Theory
A butterfly's wing
moving gracefully
in a still Asian dawn
works up a storm
that beats the hell
out of us in Pennsylvania.
I used to think it was
a woman somewhere
on he other side of the world,
turning, maybe, in her sleep,
or tossing the hair
from her face with a soft flip,
that has wakened me
on this lonely dark night,
not a sound, not a glint
of light out the window,
and no air at all
on this night when I need
air, even if only
what comes of a butterfly
passing, or a woman
turning, or tossing her hair.
Anonymous submission.
Read poems about / on: butterfly, woman, hair, lonely, sleep, dark, night, light, world, women, work
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'The New Theory' is not one of McKee's better efforts. The butterfly effect is an overdrawn metaphor and the woman that the speaker desires leaves the reader grasping at straws. Although the premise of the poem has potential, the poem fails to deliver a strong punch line at the end. However, the setup creates the weakness of the poem since the intitial metaphor has been used by a number of other poets.