we had visited a butterfly conservatory. Hot air made our clothes stick. The room hushed. He had been deeply depressed, and the fragility of the insects as they wobbled on his sleeves moved him. Many years later, on the night of his suicide, he stepped from the darkness of a dream to blink in bright light. When I called his name, butterflies spun a blur of ruby.

Tina Barry

is the author of Beautiful Raft (Big Table Publishing, 2019) and Mall Flower (Big Table Publishing, 2016). Her writing can be found in Rattle, Verse Daily, The Best Small Fictions 2020 (spotlighted story) and TBSF 2016, Trampset, Gone Lawn, American Poetry Journal, ONE ART, Gyroscope Review, The Fourth River, Maryland Literary Review, Nasty Women Poets anthology, South Florida Poetry Journal, Sky Island Journal, and elsewhere. She is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee and has several Best of the Net nods. She teaches at The Poetry Barn and Writers.com.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Beautiful Raft: An Interview with Tina Barry by Hannah Grieco in Empty Mirror (28 February 2020)

⚡ A Friend’s Daughter Dies by Tina Barry in American Poetry Journal (Issue 14, Summer 2017)