The Night Butterflies
They come when the dark has settled into itself,
when the porch light makes its small confession to the air —
pale wings that seem to materialize from nothing,
from the nothing that was always full of them.
I watch from the threshold, neither in nor out,
the way I have always lived my truest life —
at edges, in the hinge of things,
where the known world softens into question.
They do not know they are beautiful.
That is the whole of their grace.
They navigate by light they did not choose,
and somehow, so do I.
artwork and poetry ©Stacy Stephens