A Fever

Today, butterflies flapped everywhere I looked: a Gulf Fritillary flung herself, flopping and flapping, at vines and leaves along one eight-foot stretch of a Lake Cheston path, beginning near the Passion Flowers where she may have emerged; on the beach a half-dozen American Snouts circled my hat like a landing strip and sucked sweat from my hand, while below me a single female Monarch butterfly puddled, seeking moisture from warm sand; two Eastern Tiger Swallowtails spun round J's zinnias, while this single Pipevine Swallowtail supped and sucked at the Cardinal Flowers overhanging J's pond.  

A fever ran through them all.