Beyond the Shelter

Run from the path to the front door
With paper shopping bag sagging
Under the weight of oat milk cartons
Crumbling into small rolled up balls in my palm
While hand searches pockets for the key to the lock
Do butterfly wings disintegrate in the rain like the bag?

Worn and weary, residual, wet dust on pavement
If they stop to see the long white cloud weaving
Between hill tops turning dark and damp and grey,
Feel the moisture pooling in the air and the cold wind
Breaking these pools into funneled waves of mist?

Unlock doors to weatherboard boxes
And strain acid droplets from hair, wrap
Hands and toes in warm wool socks, do butterflies crawl
Into flooding corners in the trees or sleeping bag leaves
Listening to the sound of droplets on
Thin tin or wooden roof is there now a butterfly
Slotting itself flatly through the letter sized gap  
In postbox, seeking refuge beside letters and spiders
Still lesser loved moth cousins?

We leave a window open and on the sill some cotton
Balls stuck together with the gloop
Of that sogged paper bag, atop it a coin
Weigh down the tiny bed.