Butterfly

for Edmund Barry

This is what they told me: position is everything. 
   Raise your arms 135°, 
elbows bent like parentheses, palms face front, 
                  fingers cupped together 

like the bowl of a spoon—in short: 
   make each arm an oar 
and then work them sagittally. I was taught to cut 
                  a keyhole in the water 

and push my way through, to breathe 
   only every second stroke, 
drag my head the way the squid 
                  drags its pulsing bulb, 

to kick on one and three, legs stitched shut, 
   singular, primordial—
in short: the body as machine. Despite all, to live 
                  without metaphor.


I say don't want motion without beauty. 
   I say think 
of the tree you climbed as a child, 
                  how you learned to sleep there. 

Now feel your body grow nacreous. 
   Remember 
the birthmark on your thigh, 
                  how every spring

it bloomed like a tulip. Now spread your wings. 
   A story isn't a story 
until it's two stories. 
                  Sometimes death is a victory.