I wrote for June 5,
thinking of butterflies,
but they were a week behind,
like everything else I love. 

The archive says June 12.
The magazine,
tucked in some library’s hush,
must wait until next Thursday
to spill its colored plates,
its ghosts, its nets.

But I had already started walking,
mistaking
the mimic for the original,
the shade for the leaf,
the Mourning Cloak
for a memory.

So let this be
my false anniversary,
my misdated page-glade,
my premature wingbeat.

Nabokov showed
how to fold the carpet
so the pattern overlaps—
a butterfly pinned to nothing
but breath.