1
It's mid-September， and in the Magic Wing Butterfly Conservancy
in Deerfield， Massachusetts， the woman at the register
is ringing up the items of a small girl and her mother.
There are pencils and postcards and a paperweight
all with butterfliesand， chilly1 but alive，
three monarch2 caterpillars3in small white boxes
with cellophane TOPs， and holes punched in their sides.
The girl keeps rearranging them like a shell game
while the cashier chats with her mother： They have to
feed on milkweedyou can buy it in the nursery outside.
We've got a field behind our house， the mother answers.
The cashier smiles to show she didn't need the sale：
And in no time， they'll be on their way to Brazil or Argentina
or wherever they go （to Mexico， says the girl，
though she's ignored） and you can watch them
do their thing till they're ready to fly.
2
I remember the monarchs4 my son and I brought in one summer
on bright pink flowers we'd picked along the swamp
on Yetter's farm. We were city folks， eager for nature
and ignorantwe left our TV homeand left the flowers
in a jar on the dry sink in the trailer. We never noticed the
caterpillars
till we puzzled out the mystery of the small black things
on the marble TOPwhich turned out to be their droppings.
And soon， three pale green dollops hung from the carved-out leaves，
each studded with four gold beadsso gold they looked to be
mineralnot animala miracle that kept us amazed
as the walls grew clear and the transformed things broke through，
pumped fluid in their wings， dried offand flew.
I gauge5 from that memory that it will be next month
before the girls are ready. I wonder how they'll fly
when there's been frost. And they'll come back next summer，
the cashier says， to the very same fieldthey always do.
I'm sure that isn't true. But why punch holes
in our little hopes when we have so few？
3
Next month， my mother will have a hole put in her skull6
to drain the fluid that's been weighing on her brain.
All summer， she's lain in one hospital or another
yet the old complainer's never complained.
In Mather， the woman beside her spent a week in a coma7，
wrapped like a white cocoon8 with an open mouth
（a nurse came now and then to dab9 the drool）。
My mother claimed the woman's husband was there too
doing what they dothough it didn't annoy her.
Now she's in Stony10 Brookon the eighteenth floor.
I realize I don't know her anymore. When she beat against
the window to break through， they had to strap11 her down
and yet how happy and how likeable she's become.
When I visit， I spend my nights in her empty house
in the bed she and my father used to share. Perhaps they're
there. Perhaps we do come back year after year
to do what we've always doneif we can't make
our way to kingdom come， or lose ourselves altogether.
