Painted Ladies

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