The Butterfly Lovers Finally Share a Bed
Inspired by a Chinese folktale
We see the two of them outside our window,
Wings still wet from the chrysalis,
Resting, unfolding, pondering
This strange new path they’ve taken.
Our love cannot be expressed as a folktale,
I murmur, my head in the crook of your
Smooth neck, listening to
The hush of your breath.
We try to come up with an excuse.
The incensed smoke of sworn brothers,
The love between Zhu Yingtai and Liang Shanbo–
But your love is not womanly love.
Nor is mine duty towards a wife-to-be.
What’s love? You ask, our sweat mixing together.
I respond, it’s the pleasure I feel when
You carry my suitcase up the stairs to my apartment.
It’s when I hand you Walgreens cough syrup,
Boots sweating asphalt-brown snow.
It’s the packets of poems and papers exchanged
Between apartment & apartment.
Wait– does doubleness do it? I suggest.
Think about it–
Boxers & boxers under blankets.
Soft voice & soft voice mutually whispering words of devotion.
Happiness & happiness on a red square
Inside a door, away from strangers’ side-eyes.
But my hand trails to your thigh, and you flinch
From the soreness.
I remember your blank stare into the distance when
You’re asked whether you’re a “miss”
Or “mister.”
You’re a chrysalis yet to open up–
Seedlings sprouting on
Smooth neck, arms swelling,
Voice dropping like the coastal floor.
But you, too
Are a chrysalis, you say.
And yes–
The pulsing, tender warmth that
Expands with my breath
Is just the first crack in my stone.
A gradual softening, like rubber.
You vent of imbalanced love–
Father
and son,
Husband
and wife,
Ge-ge
and di-di.
Even the emperor
who cut his subject’s sleeve.
When people see us,
Why do the first thing they think of
Is this?
No matter what, we agree,
This red thread leads us
away from carved hierarchy,
Where the trees are wild, untamed.
Not shade and brightness.
Not yuan and yang.
But still an odd pair of ducks, vibrantly colored
Like the wings of butterflies, escaping together into the unknown.