Laura Jeu

Our third grade love story

Tumbles from Max’s lips

As this fiancé of mine recounts

How the monarch’s migration

Begins a thousand miles away.

 

Tumbling flower petals

From tall branches fell

Onto my long brown hair

Outside the classroom door

Where two eight year olds,

Transplanted by migration patterns

Neither could control,

At a point of unspoken agreement

Converged with the force

Of a million monarchs.

 

Detangling the petals from long locks,

Max’s careful fingers cradled the wings

Of a plastic clip encasing strands of hair.

 

“Annie?” scared lips closed around my name.

“One of your butterflies fell out.”

Closing my hand around his,

I lifted the plastic wings of the clip

To his overdressed collar,

Pinning the butterfly to the crisp fold.

 

Today, matrimonial ties joined,

Max’s boutonniere sprigs converge

Beneath the tension

Of a twenty year old butterfly clip.