John Davis

Butterfly People

Their hair intertwines with their wings.
Call it a wild mane. Call it soft rims

of the horizon. These people flutter up
and down valleys pulling children from funnels 

of wind. No need to prove they exist
with exotic equations of breath and light. 

No need when they weave the wind with black
and orange feathers to swerve around children. 

Whispers live in transparent skeletons.
They stitch-up blooms of thistles, make 

languages of rain and wind only children know
since they haven’t been told they don’t exist. 

And these flying cars that children swear
were swerved away from them by wings, 

these human butterflies with blond hairs
and mustaches that safely place children in fields  

six miles from their homes, we dare not believe.
Instead we recycle the same old corpses of stories. 

Our thoughts being melted hailstones, we are
afraid they will water the garden and grow 

china dolls we have not planted, that the white phlox
will become our daughters in luxurious gowns.

Author’s Note: The May 21, 2011 tornadoes in Joplin, Missouri caused catastrophic damage. Cars were hurled into fields, houses were ripped apart and power lines crashed across roads. Many residents were killed. Some survivors claimed they had been saved by Butterfly People who resembled angels with white wings. Most of these survivors did not know one another and told in exact detail what others had told before. Were there unexplained guardians saving lives? I was drawn to the story.