Riding a giant monarch butterfly
away from a heist I’ve just crushed,
heavy bags of money in each of my hands
weighing down the butterfly
and making it fly weird.
One of the bags got shot
in the chaos of our escape
and it’s leaking gold coins into the sky,
each lost coin diminishing slightly
the collective weight borne by the butterfly and I
smoothing out the shape of our flight over time.
Rising and falling on currents of air
we break through cloud-banks here and there
following the low western sun as it sinks
coloring and recoloring the horizon.
Behind us caws a trail of crows
following the coins falling out of the bag
like they’re food, battling each other
for what they don’t know won’t feed them
and it’s like a grand parade in the sky
with me and the butterfly as marshal
and although my arms are tired
from holding these huge bags of money
not unlike a philosopher’s mind
encumbered by truth’s exotic reaches,
and my thighs are sore
from holding myself to the butterfly
the way a soul can be sore
from its relentless and unflinching
submission to grace, I really don’t mind.
And although the wings of the butterfly
are sure to be tender, too, from beating
so hard so many times in a row
to convey us so quickly so far
from the spot where these moneybags were
when we stole them, I don’t suppose
the butterfly minds much either
because we’re rich. Me and the giant
monarch butterfly I ride are finally rich.
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