BUTTERFLY GOD
︎︎︎︎︎ Serena Devi
︎ Aug 23, 2023
in this rather detailed petroglyph
of a young girl a
butterfly-shaped design appears
to be stitched into the mesh of her shirt
on a later ax blade
we see a rougher hewn
mirror of the shape
– near carbon copy!
a side note:
something terrible happened to this girl
most likely
and now she appears
in caves and tapestries and pieces of toasted bread
on practically every continent
some bad thing befell her
and she became transported
I can’t quite reckon with how
so few anthropological texts make
meat of the fact that
we see this mother shape
burned into stone, textiles, wood
carved into precious gemstones even
but only ever
flat pinned and reverent
often found near bodies of water
impossible to attribute
of a young girl a
butterfly-shaped design appears
to be stitched into the mesh of her shirt
on a later ax blade
we see a rougher hewn
mirror of the shape
– near carbon copy!
a side note:
something terrible happened to this girl
most likely
and now she appears
in caves and tapestries and pieces of toasted bread
on practically every continent
some bad thing befell her
and she became transported
I can’t quite reckon with how
so few anthropological texts make
meat of the fact that
we see this mother shape
burned into stone, textiles, wood
carved into precious gemstones even
but only ever
flat pinned and reverent
often found near bodies of water
impossible to attribute
Serena Devi is a writer from Kentucky based in Brooklyn, New York. She has had fiction and poetry published in dirt child, Social Text, Shitwonder, The Recluse, and Forever Mag. @14.16.22