James K. Zimmerman

the day after you sighed your last breath out we let your butterflies go your painted ladies four of them born from paper wombs into a cheesecloth cage now proudly decked out in orange and white trimmed in black we let them go with stiffened fingers they would not leave one drifted in hovering half-hearted circles another rested softly on your daughter's wet shoulder a third held close to the budding milkweed you saved from the scythe years ago the last one content to say perched in its velvet cape on my sunlit finger we could not speak so still the afternoon and when time began once again to flow they knew it was for them (the opening of our hands) another ragged breath was drawn as they pumped and sputtered (a single voice) and took to the clouding sky

I wait for you to come to brush your shoe against the blade of grass I'm sitting on touch me with your hand as you reach for one last violet to take home or pick up a worm to place gracefully in the garden even better if you lie on a hillside to watch the sunset or breathe in stars I will feel your warmth, bury my head next to that freckle on your calf, that hair on your forearm, or just behind the lobe of your left ear I promise not to take too much blood into my swelling body only what I think I need and I will never let you know I am here though I will love you deeply

this morning I felt my life if you were dead the expansiveness of the bed the birds still singing the remnants of the smell of coffee in the morning the emptiness of thought the deafening silence of my heart