The Comma Butterfly – James Knox Whittet

The George Crabbe Memorial Poetry Competition
2010 Crabbe Memorial Competition – Second Prize
Adjudicator: Gareth Calway

On the walls of an Auschwitz holding
cell, children waiting in terror their turn
for the showers, scrawled butterfly after
butterfly in heavenly flight from stone.

On the underside of each blooded,
ragged wing, each comma,
each pause for breath, appeared
to be in the form of a question mark.

Copyright © James Knox Whittet 2010