Quickening

Bored, I went to my bedroom,

reached in the peanut butter jar,

holes punched in the lid,

and grabbed the chrysalis.

Its papery husk felt like corn silk in my palm

as I watched TV with my brothers.

I felt life for the first time, fluttering inside.

Dreamed of the colorful butterfly growing within

and gingerly replaced it in the jar.

Another day and off the bus I raced

to check on my baby butterfly.

I found instead a dead brown moth,

its large wings crumpled in the glass prison.

It would be twenty years before

I felt that fluttering again

in my own belly.

But, I had learned,

and you survived.