Common darter, horse-stinger,
black-tailed skimmer tinged purple
and green—you and your keen-sighted clouds
of armies can make swift work of marauding
monkeys. Remember, in prehistoric times,
you were the largest flying insect, ever.
Old tales warn: don't fall asleep
on a damp riverbank, lest the devil's
darning needles sew your human
eyes shut. Free-moving, water-dwelling
nymph, you live underwater more than
a day, until it's time to moult— that
process when the skin splits
and we wriggle, flimsy, into what
we've been given as wings.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.