Butterfly Effect
GRANT CLAUSER
The whole field saw it
coming the moment
we heard the crack
of the bat and then
the softer thud when
the ball hit Jay square
in the temple, a sound
like the shortstop hitting
his glove with his fist.
And Jay became the center
axis the world spun on
as he crumpled till even
the monarch butterflies
drinking milkweed near
the dugout could no longer
change the weather in Africa
with the beat of their wings.
By the time Jay’s dad
reached him the world restarted,
all of us caught in the wake.
Grant Clauser lives in Hatfield Pennsylvania. He has two books: Necessary Myths (winner of the 2013 Dogfish Head Poetry Prize) and The Trouble with Rivers (Foothills Publishing). His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Cheat River Review, Tar River Poetry, Southern Poetry Review, and others. He also writes about electronics, teaches poetry at random places and chases trout with a stick. Read his blog at www.uniambic.com.