Ringed emerald,
sedge sprite:

some words flutter,
sparkle, explode.

Say vermillion.
Say topaz.

Jewels with wings thin as eyelids,
flutter deftly out of reach.

Skimmers, cruisers:
try to pin a name
on a moment, a performance,
a cartwheeling dance of DNA
when two fly as one: head-to-tail,
male-to-female.

Say Odonata.
Say Anisoptera, Zygoptera
as if Latin were love’s language.

A swamp darner, 
a sewing needle.

Imagine an entomologist
blushing before a cardinal 
meadowhawk, uttering 
Sympetrum illotum
as if the name were aflame.

To hold one is to hold air.

Its eyes shatter 
our single view
into a million.

Stalking Cranes

On the edge of a marsh, I crouch, 
listen; the promise of morning 
pulls dew to the tips of reeds.

They trumpet to each other, 
toss sticks, twirl and bow.
I see vague outlines,

graceful necks curve through 
darkness. Everything is soft
as watercolor, the first hint 

of pink. Closer, I must be closer.
I crawl through mud, until I could 
reach up, pull a feather from a wing.

They bugle to each other, 
male and female, their hollow 
bones dressed in white, 

a sun painted on their crowns.
I smell their labored breathing, 
and know it’s more than ritual, 

more than love: this heavy dance 
of birds, this pre-dawn stomping.
I know I can’t dance that faithfully, 

know the weight of my bones,
the fullness of my flesh.
The sun pulls the clouds

into nothingness; they lift 
their six-foot frames into flight.
I shiver in my newborn nakedness.