I cradle it in my palm, its butterfly weight 
oddly substantial on my skin. I can’t pry 
the wings apart so I inspect its underside: 
scalloped like sea sand; black spots 
like tiny eyes ringed in yellow and rust, 
body a downy cylinder; tongue a coiled thread. 
This was a life lived in transit, a life 
that brightened the air between the flowers. 
So small a thing, so light on the breeze 
but not so light as to lose its way. Its body 
now, an empty velvet costume. 

My mother left her body, marble white, 
blue and purple in spots where gravity 
left its marks—a gift to the medical 
school. Eyes closed as in sleep, brows 
and lids made up by tattoo, this body 
that once brightened every room she ever 
entered, was whisked away, a teaching tool, 
before I had the chance to overcome 
my fear—so unlike her, this new silence—
to reach in and hold her one last time. 

Bio: Tamara Madison