Karen Macklin is a San Francisco-based multi-genre writer. Her articles, essays, plays, and poems have been published/produced locally and nationally. Her most recent publication was an essay is Stone Voices magazine, Summer 2012. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State, and also works as an editor and a yoga teacher in San Francisco. Please visit www.karenmacklin.com.
Mitchell and I are in the country to decide the fate of our marriage. At the inn, an old man spends hours each day tending to the pool, skimming it slow and snail-like, scooping up clumps of debris and dropping them to the concrete with a tap-tap-tap. “He’s so slow,” Mitchell remarks. “They should have a machine for that.” One morning, I approach the pool cleaner in between tap-tap-taps. “Butterfly season,” he says. “They’re all suicidal. They go straight for the water and drown unless I pick them out. Beautiful, foolish creatures. Sometimes, I spend an entire day saving butterflies.”
08.14.12