Burial Poem by Rasma Haidri

My child buried a butterfly
in our driveway, one wing
disembodied and perfect,
it lay like a Chinese fan
gloriously open. She crouched
and whispered - I'm afraid
to touch it - and I remembered
my father's body, his dead
flesh speckled, dread and desire
weighing in my own
unmoving arms.

Slowly she lifted a fallen
leaf, and laid it
over the monarch wing.
A thin black edging still showed
so she took a sliver
of leaf and laid this too,
then a minute pebble
peaked like a star
- There - she whispered and reached
to stroke
the long bone of my arm.



(first published in Fish Stories III, WorkShirts Writing Center,1997)