The Woman with the Butterflies

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Mia Rhee

Sept 2021

The first day it was just a woman dressed in white slacks and a scoop neck long-sleeved shirt standing in Times Square. The second day a monarch butterfly landed on her clavicle. The third day a monarch landed on her hip. The fourth day, five came and settled on her thigh in a straight line, flapping their wings teasingly, like the batting of an eye. The fifth day 100 came and made her a crown, gilding her in orange laurels: That was the day I came to watch. The 12th day her torso was covered in dozens of wings. The 20th day it was windy and 300 came from the south and wrapped around every bit of exposed skin left except for her face. The 50th day it rained, and their inky black and marigold wings dripped pigment onto the city sidewalk: crying colors and drain-ing despair. On the 51st day the woman cried. It is the 59th day and on my way to work children stop to take pictures with her — the woman dressed in butterflies  —  the adults turn their heads, “what a broken woman they say,” and I wonder if a butterfly can only survive for two months, afterward, what will become of the woman underneath.

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Mia Rhee studies at Northwestern University.