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Haiku Free Verse Prosies
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You wanted me to write a short story
about a hotel room in Provincetown—
how two women might have arrived there
and whether or not they made love,
amidst the tacky furniture, over or under
the hideous bedspread. You wanted me to describe
how one might have let out a hoarse cry at the climax,
and the other died at the hands
of a jealous acupuncurist.
But I am writing you this poem instead.
What's more important is the story you told me at breakfast,
the one you told, while all the while,
a spider spun its web behind you
in the corner of that white room.
It was the butterfly outside the window,
who reminded you of all that grief.
I do not know the rules for telling other people's stories.
Growing up as I did, I am concerned
with what the rules might be.
You know best how to tell
of the five white butterflies that appeared above your bed,
in the Bronx,
in a fifth-floor
tenement apartment,
in the middle of a heat wave.
You know best how to say how they got there.
To attach my own truth to other people's stories,
that seems to be against the rules.
Still, I would count them for you, for the Elsa who woke,
half-wreathed in sleep, groggy for weeks,
to see them hanging there, with their delicate message:
One for the earth, his body
One for the water, his blood
One for the air, his breath
One for the fire, his spirit
and the fifth for what remains when he is gone.
— Frances Donovan
August 1999
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