They Should've Stayed In Their Cocoons

I was barely over
the legal limit
on my way home
Monday morning.
My crew stopped
for liquid breakfast
after Sunday night's shift.
The bartender dates
our foreman
so no one could
shoot for the moon.
Free rounds kept coming.
I gave my last chip away
when I started to feel
like staying.
One more brown bottle
may have made
my right foot heavier
during the ride home.
It wasn't worth the jail time.
There were no motivators in sight.

It was the first real
springtime morning
up and out at sixty-five.
God Rays shined down
from between magenta clouds
making fresh grass greener
than the money I'd be making.
In the humid bath tub air
the first brood of butterflies
floated to their deaths
against my windshield
for fourteen semi-sober miles.
I had to veer around
a horse-drawn cart
conducted by an Amish man
in a wide-brimmed black hat.
At first it made me wonder
if I'd felt them more
than I thought, but then
I heard the truck behind me
blow his horn in protest.

When I pulled down
the driveway, parked
and hopped out
lunchbox and backpack in hand
I saw the dusty outlines
of fragile wings
all along my front bumper
and felt immensely guilty
for dousing nature's fire.

A voicemail from my father
set the tone for feeble sleep:
"Hope that you're not lonely
and you're doing well
up there."
I could hear it in his voice.
He knew it all
already.