A tattoo flutters daintily up from her sternum
To the top of her shoulder
Two butterflies in playful chase
As the flow of time runs thin
It begins with a benign growth in the breast
But a year melts by
And the reassurances slow to a trickle
She can still hear her mother’s last words to her
Ink drips through the layers of skin
She bites her lip
Perhaps she would cry
But the river has long since gone dry
Her mother kept butterflies
And so she must too