I trapped a dragonfly today:
put him
in a glass jar,
dropped
in a few blades of grass and lilac buds,
and
slammed
on
the lid.
For a while he buzzed and bled around in there,
banging on the insides of impatience: lonely.
But every time I finished reading a poem's line to him,
I could hear him taking in his breath again,
startled but slowly,
a recognition.
And his eyes were silk and sometimes I could hear them blinking,
but they would never fix on me...
the blossoms...the glass...

In the night I awoke and he was at it again:
banging.
"Why---" thmp
"are you being"
thmp thmp bng-bmp
"so fucking nice to me?"
he asked.
thmp thmp.
And my hair was wet and shining then,
and my God I think I could hardly breathe;
and his wings were white and silver waxen:
heavy, shimmering...
free.

And the only words I could say
were love,
but he could swallow that with time,
so I left him there in the bottom of the jar
---as he asked---
stilled and lovely,
sleepy and
satisfied;
although,
in the morning,
even the lilac buds were gone---
a hole in the glass
chewed through.

Copyright 1995 by Terra Elan McVoy -- from the table beneath the hand