Poem of the week : Butterfly Kiss by Iona Lee

Butterfly Kiss

There’s a pile of folded laundry, 

waiting for him, like an unopened letter, 

on the bed. 

All that is soft and unspoken. 

Every month she cracks off another finger,

tender as a petal. Hooplas the ring along one.

But we’re only born with ten and he has 

six pairs of corduroy trousers. 

She irons his shirt collars crisp as a bone 

snapping between teeth. 

Iona Lee is a twenty-five-year-old poet, illustrator, musician, writer, editor and spoken-word performer from East Lothian. She has been Bella Caledonia’s Arts and Music Editor for the last year and a half and is moving on to new adventures. She has been largely responsible for the Poem Of The Week so we thought it fitting that, this week, we chose one of her beautiful poems. 

(pic by John Mackie)

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