Monarchs Landing and Flying If they have come for the butterflies then bless their breaking hearts, but the young pair is looking nowhere except each other's eyes. He seems like he could carry them both over the street on great wings of grief tucked under his coat, while all around them float, like wisps of ash or the delicate prism sunlight flashing off the city glass, the orange-yellow-black-wing-flecked monarchs. Migrant, they're more than two dozen today, more long-lived than the species who keep to the localized gardens — they're barely a gram apiece, landing, holding still for the common milkweed that feeds their larvae, or balanced on bridges of plume grass stalks and bottlebrush, wings fanning, closing, calmed by the long searchlight stems of hollyhock. If they have come for the butterflies then why is she weeping when he lifts her chin? He looks like he's holding his breath back — or is he trying to shed tears, too? Are any left? He's got his other hand raised, waving, and almost before it stops the taxi's doors flare on both sides open. Nothing's stirring in the garden, not us, not the thinnest breeze among the flowers, yet by the time we look again they've flown. {{{ I HAVE NOT WRITTEN THIS :nw: }}}
