Ballad of a Wingless Butterfly, Torn Asunder by Unforeseen Windstorm

 

His habit comes naturally, an almost instinctual love of womblike warmth, hideaway places and secret graffiti.

 

Folds his bones for hours on end, prostrates himself beneath the rumbling highway overpass under shotgun tailpipes, brake snarls, hiccupping honks and rattling metal. Something about being lost, tunnels and the cloak of crevices. There, he knows, those hunting headlights will never find him. To be lost is to be found. Likes to ride the top of the enormous magnolia tree in the front yard during impromptu storms just to see if lightning will deign to strike. All it takes is once. He is unafraid to die. Nine years old. The bough sways his lithe bones, slams the cage of his body to and fro, but not enough to lift him up. Rain feels good to an open cut: Jesus’ own antiseptic. There on the mottled bark, hunched inside a hole he spots the butterfly, paper wings hanging loose, daring to be ripped free. He is quick. He is merciful.

 

When mother calls he ignores her, the way she ignores Him. When He calls, he knows it’s time to come down. Greeted at the peeling screen door by a crooked cowboy grin, dark leather skin and Old Testament handshake. The Old Man likes to crunch ice to a pulp when He goes to work on him at night. To be lost is to be found, he reminds himself, straightens his back and takes it.

 

Afterwards, as he is made to recite selected passages from the Good Book makes sure to drip upon and smear those slick gold pages.