Butterflies

Down to the right, in a corner, I found this when I was wiping the dust off the bookshelves at work. It made me happy to find it, that kind of happy you get when you find something strange, something to ponder for a while. Why do insects have such strange legs, is something to wonder about. What is this one called in Latin, does it fly during the day or the night? And why did it choose to die down to the right, in a corner, at my job? That’s something to wonder about too.
When I was in Tanzania my dad and I would catch butterflies and put them in jam jars. I remember the very first one we found at the embassy, it was sitting on a red column, the first day we were there. It was huge, it was a moth not a butterfly. And later, I would run around outside our house with a net to catch them, but they were too fast for me, I was five years old and would chase them as if they gave me the answer to something I hadn’t asked about yet, not at that time.
I’ve still got an old cigar box where dad used to store scalpels, cotton wads and needles, it smells of tymol poison. Every time I open it the smell rises up, making me dizzy and I’m in Africa I’m gone I’m…