for
three years
he lived in the rectangle
carved into his skull
where the clouds strode
through a benevolent blue
we watched them
through his eyes
my father died in pieces
disconsolate as the day
my sister departed,
my mother mourned
her final child
her finite childhood
the last of her kind
forsaken as bones
shaken in a box, he
escaped out the back door.
for six weeks
she built nests of paper
clever compilations of letters,
crayoned art, report cards,
any evidence that she
had given birth
then without a word
she expelled the butterflies
radiant from her lips
and joined her people
