Your eyes, after I told you

that you were the only man

 

I’d slept with and cared for

in a long time, reminded me—

 

as I watched your lids shut

and open reluctantly,

 

I remembered the quiet

surrender of a butterfly

to my net when I was a child.

After the wild flutter,

 

came the calm descent until

it rested, poised, a frozen panic,

 

and finally shut its wings,

collapsing into flatness.

 

Later, as the delicate wings cracked

under the pins in my album,

 

I stopped loving.