Cloistered
in your stomach,
butterflies slumber
when numbers fall right
—blood counts, the lottery of chemistry, titrated hope—
and you win a hundred more nights
of prescribed sleep until
the next scan, test or trial pins you
down to chaos and butterflies jerk awake,
alarmed wings jamming your breath.
***
Marie-Andree Auclair’s poems have appeared in several publications such as In/Words Magazine—who released her chapbook Contrails in 2013—The Steel Chisel, Bywords, filling Station, Structo U.K., The Maynard, Gravel, Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine, and Canthius. More are forthcoming in Contemporary Verse 2 and Tule Review. She lives in Ottawa, Canada, working on her next chapbook.
Sliver of Stone Magazine 