The Wheelchair Butterfly
By James Tate
O sleepy city of reeling wheelchairs
where a mouse can commit suicide if he can
concentrate long enough
on the history book of rodents
in this underground town
of electrical wheelchairs!
The girl who is always pregnant and bruised
like a pear
rides her many-stickered bicycle
backward up the staircase
of the abandoned trolleybarn.
Yesterday was warm. Today a butterfly froze
in midair; and was plucked like a grape
by a child who swore he could take care
of it. O confident city where
the seeds of poppies pass for carfare,
where the ordinary hornets in a human’s heart
may slumber and snore, where bifocals bulge
in an orange garage of daydreams,
we wait in our loose attics for a new season
as if for an ice-cream truck.
An Indian pony crosses the plains
whispering Sanskrit prayers to a crater of fleas.
Honeysuckle says: I thought I could swim.
The Mayor is urinating on the wrong side
of the street! A dandelion sends off sparks:
beware your hair is locked!
Beware the trumpet wants a glass of water!
Beware a velvet tabernacle!
Beware the Warden of Light has married
an old piece of string!
Copyright © 1991 by James Tate.
