For almost two years, a butterfly kite hung in the upper branches of a maple tree on our street. At night, its yellow wings soaked in the glow of street lamps. By morning it was a caution sign, a bow of light, a blinding amendment to leaf and trunk. It bleached in summer heat and wintered over like a blown shell. After storms fractured the rods, its forewings collapsed onto hindwings. Blue and pink markings faded to old bruises. Near the end, the kite dangled from a branch like a butterfly clinging to a torn chrysalis. It rocked and spun, but there was no great release, no flapping off with the monarchs. One morning it was simply gone, disappeared like a species of one.
Diane LeBlanc is a teacher, writer, and book artist with roots in Vermont, Wyoming, and Minnesota. She has published four poetry chapbooks, numerous poems and essays, and a history of women in sport, Playing for Equality: Oral Histories of Women Leaders in the Early Years of Title IX. Honors and awards include the 2019 Fineline Competition award from Mid-American Review and the 2020 runner-up award for the Donald Murray Prize in Creative Nonfiction. A poetry collection, The Feast Delayed, is forthcoming from Terrapin Books in 2021. To learn more, visit www.dianeleblancwriter.com.
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