Poetry of Issue #7        Page 17

Light Show

Newly arrived in the school district,
Nelson twirls the butterfly knife
in front of the long-residing boy

(much more movement
than the one the boy’s father
carries to dress a taken deer)

as they have been sheared off the tail
of the seventh-grade procession back to the gym
from the football field

so the boy compares the shifting blade
to its namesake and finds it apt

—shine of steel in the fall semi-sun—

though not quite as the nectar-seeker,
since it shick-shicks in the shuffle of fingers

for the sake of Nelson’s show
that the boy further determines
is just that, no sharp thrust expected

so the lepidopteron

—flicker—

returns to the jean-pocket chrysalis,

the two trudge up the hill to the bricks and linoleum
under endless fluorescent tubes

secret shared of the wings that might
in a flash flutter into the light

  John Zedolik