The Buried Butterfly

[MoonyLuna]

My iris purple skirt—
its silky swish—
was packed at first for partying in

but then the destination changed:
I checked in for a flight
towards his final journeying.

In that petal furl, with a beaded
butterfly to curb its wrap,
I helped to carry him,

a coffined husk,
across a patch of rocky ground
to dusty burying.

At last, a rest for him.
For me, the hollow pit of grief,
a body's emptying.

In a new uncompassed north
I dug a hole beneath a tree,
through softer soil. For memory,

these seeds: a bauble
and a photograph, snatched flowers,
the match's halo-ing.

There it must lie still
no longer winged:
just a scatter of beads melted
in the earth, and a rusted pin.


Copyright
Isobel Dixon

[MoonyLuna]

Featured Poet
Isobel Dixon


Isobel Dixon was born in Umtata and grew up in the Karoo region of South Africa. Her debut collection, Weather Eye (Carapace, 2001) won the Sanlam and the Olive Schreiner Prizes. The poem here is from her most recent book, A Fold in the Map (Salt, 2007). She has also been published in the New Writing anthologies, The Paris Review, The Guardian, and London Magazine, among others, and been translated into Dutch and Turkish. She lives in Cambridge.