BLACK BUTTERFLIES

Night strikes the flint of dawn.
Tropical mornings come on fast;
no rosy-fingered foreplay here.

Alone in the bus station waiting-room,
eyes fixed on a plate-glass window of darkness,
I suddenly see the chain-link fence
and houses already announced by the cocks' crowing.

When he stepped off that bus,
I stumbled into his rage
like those enormous black butterflies
that smack you blindly in the face.

Barbara Joan Schaffer