I stepped into
a book store
with you
and saw the hanging
words
up to the
ceiling,
overhead
gazing down at
me, the
oddity in
a bookshop

and to the back
of the place you
wondered.

to the
dusty corner
of a shadow where
you finally
called my
name.

Then as I peered around the
shelves of a
thousand pages,
my eyes
found your hand
outreaching,
pointing,
to the end of a
corridor
where a
broken
golden frame
of butterflies
sat uncared for
in its lonesome.

and against
the glass, I saw
myself, my face,
my reflection in
a coffin holding
the decorators of
the sky and then

the shopkeep in his
boredom choked
"she's found
the dead
butterflies..."