Two monarch butterflies on the lower back

The two of them came down on the washing line this morning, just as the frost lifted off the back field. One was ragged at the edge, a split in its left hindwing, and the other sat above it like it was keeping watch. I have been counting them in this valley for thirty years, tagging the ones that stop long enough, and I have never seen a pair fly so low in November.

Mum always said the monarchs knew the way south better than any of us. She was half right. They don't know the way so much as carry it in their bodies, four generations passing the route down the line, none of them ever having seen the place they are heading for. I used to think that was the saddest thing I had heard. Now I think it is the only sensible way to leave.

I should tell you I drove to the lay-by on Tuesday and sat in the car for an hour. I did not get out. I thought about your letter, the one with the Harwich postmark, and the way you signed it with only your initial, as if I might not know whose hand it was.

The ragged one is still on the line. I have pegged a clean sheet beside it so the wind can't take it. Come in spring, when they come back north. Bring the tag book. I will show you the number I wrote on the dead one in 1997, and you can tell me whether you still think I was the one who left.