Echinacea Angel

I imagined angels
arching under the echinacea,
to the place in our garden
where bugs I laid to rest
waited for heaven—marked by
my pink plastic pinwheel.

The first time I saw blood
and was not afraid—
the hatching of painted lady
butterflies bleeding before
their first flight,
before my own blood
came every month.

Before I learned
it was not God, nor wind
that took my bugs by morning,
but the magic of my mom’s hands
and Her own sacred plot
beneath a sunflower.