My grandmother spoke of the lines on the backs of her palms
as rivers leading to a dry stream bed, her callouses
as individual countries waiting to be occupied
by my grandfather’s mouth. She told the future not in tea leaves
but in the mounted butterflies of her childhood.
If the wings were intact, so would be the following years.
If one was torn or broken, pain of heart would come.
She once lit someone else’s cigarette
with only her breath, and I was reminded of the way
love turns itself inside out like a tongue,
how it builds and reveals.
Now I know where the phrase “clipping wings” comes from.
It means the ending arrives far too soon.
