They danced

they soared

they sped away

came back and touched my face

brushed past my ear

spun off, close twinned

returned, dipped low, rose high

so swift, so beautiful, so very strangely big

for butterflies! substantial, stalwart

big as birds, big as hopeless dreams

They veered in through a garden's narrow gate, climbed tall stairs—

so oddly, almost mockingly, a little pause upon each one

a half touch shared, then onward up

as if they played at walking, being earth-bound, biped, shod

upward travelling to pay some timely social call

Each step they stopped, then rose again, and then once more,

step by step by flutter step, bumped up the steep stone stairs

until at last they reached the very top

A shadowed second-story porch, a high-up darkly closed front door

Then both flew swiftly sideways, blurred past the painted banisters

out and up up up into a pale blue sky

their black and yellow brilliant as they boldly rose

Perhaps one led

and one swift followed?

Could not tell, so fully they were matched

Could not sort out winged boy from flitter girl

Could not at all tell them apart!

their black and yellow mirrored, twinned

Could not quit the sidewalk there

and somehow could not look away

They frolicked high in tree tops, then swooped down sudden low

So quickly, wildly circling a waiting purple van

The would-be passengers, tween boys, got scared! they ran away

cried out that THEY were trying to get in, to get inside the car!

The driver laughed at them for fearing bully butterflies

THEY're wild, one frowning boy averred

THEY're out to kill each other!

THEY'd kill us too, if they were big enough

These boys just did not understand the dance

at least I somehow felt that they did not

Felt somehow that I did

Meanwhile the yellow swallowtails flew up

then flickered further down the little street, Rose Street

to visit other gardens, other porches, other roses

other spreading sweet-scent blossom-covered trees

I followed them, grim tasks pushed down

half forgotten

so caught up still, so madly mesmerized. . . .

At last one slowed, a few doors down

alit upon a high-up leafy branch

stayed still as I gazed up, crept near

The other yellow swallowtail approached at once

Some kind of foreign creature contact did occur

Some touching — one was moving, one was still

Some minutes passed, some rhythmic motion

throbbing there, a golden blur above my head

Indistinct but pleasing, softly visible

the sunlit yellow bright against the dark green leaves

And then . . . and then, of course, like everything

they made a memory, conceived a beauty hurt

and then they flew away