Robert Fanning
The Release
Two weeks before our wedding day, the chrysalids
arrive by mail. Lined in stacks of white shirt boxes
the would-be Painted Ladies don’t stir for several
days, though we, the bride and groom-to-be, follow
the instructions closely, keeping them in the dark,
room temperature. After a week of silence from these
square coffins beneath our bed, I begin to secretly
suspect a hoax—that the ad my wife had seen for this
wedding butterfly release, her gorgeous gauzy hopes
pinned on the great metaphor of it, might just be
some sick trick played by a bitter triple-divorcee,
that maybe these tiny cooped-up cocoons
we can’t peek at might be mere stones, stubbed butts
of cigarettes, or wadded-up alimony notices
from the court. An August heat wave doesn’t help,
as we lay nightly side by side wondering if our baby
butterflies have fried in their little shells. Until one
evening comes the first scratch, a skittery twitching
in one of the boxes, then another, as we lean in
all ears, giddy as a couple kids listening to popcorn
kernels bursting into bloom. The eve of the wedding,
we open the boxes to see the cocoons—a field
of bronze, unearthed seeds, some stirring, others
wobbling from side to side—itching to escape.
I’m not too big on insects, born or unborn,
so I watch as my fiancée scoops them up
one by one with a plastic spoon, placing them into
small white cardboard pyramids, each secured
with a silver ribbon. The quiet ones (the company
guarantees a certain percentage of failure)
she carries outside, scattering them on parched grass.
In the blaze of our big day, post-vows and kiss,
pronounced man and wife, we announce to the crowd
before us, sweat-drenched and fanning themselves
with programs, to lift the pyramids from beneath
their chairs, and on the count of three, release
(what we hoped would be) butterflies. Thank goodness
that in the collective gasp and delight of the flapping
of hundreds of wings upward, no one noticed,
not even my new wife at first, as my butterfly,
though freed from its cocoon, spiraled, dead already,
down to the stone step of the outdoor altar, to bounce
inaudibly and broken-winged into the bushes below.
Horrified for a moment, looking down there
for the lost corpse, I smiled and smoothed
my wedding suit, as it was time to march arm in arm
toward the horse-drawn carriage. I hadn’t time to dwell
then on the grand, hopefully meaningless implications
of my insect’s aborted flight, but knew deep down
already this would not be the last time a metaphor
would let me down. There’s more to life, of course,
than stupid metaphors. And hers, at least, soared.
Paper Dolls
Only days after learning I’ll be a father,
I sit, 2am, glued to a docudrama
about a pair of infant twins attached
at the head. On the show they’re
getting ready to wheel the babies in
for surgery—no guarantees either
will survive. Beneath a twirling mobile
these conjoined angels torque and writhe,
all smiles. Leaning over the crib, the doc
looks down who hopes to sever them,
and their Mom, whose heart’s heavy
as a bag of shattered glass. In our room
my wife sleeps and someone sleeps
inside of her. Over our bed a bouquet
of razor blades hangs, a shadow
the TV makes of a spider plant.
Since our news, the hours now wobble
like bubbles from a playground wand,
every minute drifting, oblong, and sure
to burst. Look at that surgeon on TV now,
a cartographer with a Sharpie, marking
a dashed boundary in the skulls’ shallow
ravine where he’ll split the cranial continent
of these two boys. What a mess
of red roots. A slip of his wrist, and one
baby’s brain-dead or a goner. Cut to
weeks afterward: he peers down at these lives
he’s divided, alive and thriving for now,
then crosses the line saying I feel like
they’ve become my own children. Would-be
father of a tiny blooming cell, our rising
cuticle moon, I too am entwined
by these invisible threads. I climb into
our comforter as into a cocoon. Turning in
sleep, my wife who will be mother, moans.
So in love’s great sinew are we sewn.