The Woman with Butterfly Eyes, by Michelle Nott

The Woman with Butterfly Eyes
  
My five-year-old hands                                              
caressed your dresses, Yemma,                                  
that flowed like stretched-out petals in a breeze 
and patted your face, Yemma, as soft as clay
and touched your eyelids, Yemma, opened
and then closed, but ever since and always                
eternally watching me. Like an Algerian 
 
peony who faces the sun 
past the clouds and through the storms, I 
speak to you. I see you, still 
the way you wrapped your scarf 
around your hair, the way 
your arms curved around me                                      
like a feathered wing, and the shape 
of your lips telling me stories 
of how olive trees grow. Just enough             
 
we carried, little Ali and I, and left                                         
our village, its soil and souls,                                     
to live on the farm with Jiddati,                                  
she did her best and showed us                                  
baskets and pottery as you did 
in our Kabyle ways.
 
What you never saw, I did –                                       
like you, I felt the shape of what
I wanted to recognize. With my finger 
or a stick, I drew outlines of fish, birds, 
trees and flowers in the dirt. One day, 
 
the sister of the French farm owner 
noticed my drawing. This woman, 
Marguerite, who framed pictures 
on her walls, welcomed me to live
in her house in Algiers. Quiet
I was and left  
 
the farm for the big city and 
said goodbye to the sight of 
your eyes in Ali's. But I kept 
in my mind's frame, your face                                    
always and your eyes eternally 
watching me. Enough
 
Marguerite held my hands
and placed tools in them, not to work
the land, but to reproduce 
on paper with pencils and paint,
images my ten-year-old eyes
could still see alongside yours. I
 
enjoyed coloring fish and birds 
and orange trees, then
I brushed stripes into rivers 
and circles into floral patterns  
onto dresses and headscarves, 
and mysteries 
in the women's eyes. I hid
 
my pictures 
around Marguerite's house 
for her to find. These sketches –  
strong women with smart smiles 
and enchanting eyes – unveil 
conversations and stories 
that echo for me. Kabylia
 
was my home and Kabyle my 
language. Marguerite encouraged me to learn 
French. But like peacocks, I do find
beautiful, we do not communicate                             
the same way. The tales I tell
speak the language of my brushstrokes 
and spread onto canvas in shades 
of blue, green, indigo and 
red. I do not expect everyone to see 
what I am saying. Merci
all the same. One day,
 
a gallery owner from Paris, a friend               
of Marguerite, praised my artwork.
He invited me to show off 
my paintings, to show me, a young Algerian 
artist. My sixteen-year-old eyes 
still observing my country, myself, 
your memory... to leave would require 
a step as wide as the hillside. I left                             
 
one country for another with even more
people, bigger buildings, harder 
roads. My sandals stepped from 
dirt paths to solid ground – I found myself                
 
on large boulevards, small rues                      
and among artists I had only seen                              
in Marguerite's books and magazines. There,                        
I was so far from being                                   
 
the small girl watching 
you wrap up your hair
and your arms around 
me and your lips telling 
our stories. I hear them. 
In front of me, the tip of my brush 
shapes a mouth as a smirk or a smile, 
and contours your eyes eternally open 
to my secrets. With more than enough 
 
paintings                                                                     
pottery                                                                         
and Paris, I left 
 
for Algeria because I agreed 
to marry, to have my own children,
to be called Yemma. An honour I felt 
in the flow of my dresses and in the age 
of my skin and in all that I had seen
through my eyes transformed
and two decades strong.                                              

Michelle Nott

​Michelle Nott is a bilingual and binational American-French poet and author who holds a M.A. in French Literature with a concentration in surrealism and decolonization and a B.A. in Education with a minor in Creative Writing. Michelle shares her love of travel, cultures, language, and all forms of art as a secondary French and Creative Writing teacher for an international school. She is published by Enchanted Lion Books. ​