#25

The Library’s Dream

written by Mathias Svalina

Two butterflies fly up & land on me. I see the two butterflies in the normal point of view a building has of itself, the two insects visible but tiny on the entire bigness of me, but at the same time I can see the butterflies in close detail, the colorful bits of dust that cover their wings like jewels, a proboscis unfurling like a firehose, the delicate & surprisingly mammalian hairs that cover their heads, & at the same time I can see myself amid the whole wide stretch of downtown, & also I can see Buffalo as a tiny dot on the eastern US, & also I can see the molecules making up the hairs on the butterflies’ heads, atoms bound together, their electrons bouncing & swirling an endless dance, & also I can see the Sun as a tiny, distant dot among infinite dots of light. Then one of the butterflies lifts off of me, & then the other butterfly lifts into the air. The disturbance makes me lose track of the multiple points of view. I can only see one point of view, a new one. Neither I nor the butterflies are in this point of view. A field of ripe wheat shimmers in the breeze. In the distance, a grey-haired woman cuts a windfallen tree with a chainsaw. I am an old barn, used only now for storage, the nails rusted & loose, the wind passing through the gaps in my missing boards. I sit in the sunlight & take joy in the feel of the wind passing through me.