Caterpillar Perfume

Inspired initially by Bianca Stewart. (Does she have more than one poem?)

Caterpillar Perfume

Yesterday we went running

the stoplights out of tune

orange, blue, blue,

a spooned wet air room.

stir me on my good days

oats and sugar soup

a stain-soiled bare knee

a buttercup underfoot.

Eee-eee, the swallow yells

books and stems choking

stolen fingers dirty prints

a dead nest soaked in. 

tell me how butterflies rise

eyes survive the winter,

stained-glass wings move

hearts at rest to pilfer.