All Comments on 'butterfly'

but even knowing the place and opera refs still leaves me with a pretty disturbing narrative. I don't know why, exactly, but that doesn't seem to matter.

There's a tension leading to a shocking image--

"should i thank giotto

or merely grovel before you,

subservient as an undertaker freshening

your dead mother's face"

that is echoed in the last line with that disturbing (again) juxtaposition of images.

It's not a comfortable poem.

Lines that cause a physical reaction in a reader is a good thing. (Not to mention the feels, and you induce a whole tumble of emotions across the poem. Ya know, cohesive.) :-)

PS the post it note on the fridge put me in mind of Williams' "Plums."

I meant to add that the title really works well.