in three days

The lavender sleeping

in her hands

will wilt in three days, daddy says.

And maybe by that time

she will wake up and we can go back to

her favorite exhibit at the county fair,

where the chrysalis unravels

strains of leafy silk—where

captivity dissolves in veins

of weightless wings.

And I know she’ll want to race up and

down the stairs, with her orange and black

cardigan dancing around

her shoulders, like a monarch

painting the walls

with the scent of lilac meadows.

And we’ll map out treehouse plans

under the droplets of glow in the dark

stars—like the freckles

constellating across her nose.

And then she’ll retrieve

her compass and remind me

that unless we migrate

south for the winter, the sun will forget to

warm our wings. She’ll protect me

though, she promises, as she opens

the front door, not looking back as

her shadow lengthens across the grass.

And as she gathers the

dandelions and

pulls them from the grass,

the skeletons of petals

embrace the wind, carried past the street sign

we are not allowed to pass, and

above the oak tree we are

not tall enough to climb, and just as I

think the dandelions have all

fluttered away, she skips around me in

another phase of metamorphosis

and surrenders even more wishes

to the air.