BUTTERFLIES

A combat soldier gets them in his stomach,
while the literal ones wait.
These colorful bugs
pull a sweet trick to earn their salt.
After
the rat-a-tat-tats of the machine gun stop,
after the napalm cools
after
death stops the tears of pain,
before
the evaporation,
a squadron of lepidoptera alights.
And on the still warm, salt-rich human cheeks
a shroud of pulsating colors.

© Richard Fein, Brooklyn N.Y.