Odonata

Order of the Dragonfly

1. Life Cycle

Once, I was a prehistoric soap bubble.

A glass hoverer, flaunting my hydrophilic tail.

All gelatin and extendable jaw,

I stank of antediluvian ages.

Until I became infinite, twice over.

I climbed the tallest reed and with impunity, I multiplied.

I was still, at times, mistaken for a devil’s sack of marbles

yet to find their warped perfection and prepare for flight.

Now I am vein and water. Polar pull.

I gloss with chitin; I glint with cycles of the sun.

What is built on my blueprint

will surely outlast.

2. Compound Eye

Honeycomb of nerve.

Wealth of aperture.

Seed head,

bulbous cup of color,

take in that view.

Tremble,

Slick with vision.

Hold light on your arid plain.

Unfurl fovea, and nothing but the sun

could make a finer cut

into the damp ground of your sight.

3. Intercept

There’s a knack to knowing

not just where but how a fly is buzzing.

Never rush your enemy.

Better to ambush her future.

The gift is the blind side.

The secret is anticipation.

I move with all my wings

pretending cross purposes,

as if not master

of my vicious vessel.

Where she has not yet

willed herself to travel,

I will, as though by chance, already be.

My hinged jaw, ajar.