The Damselfly by Asa Boxer

She is a surveyor of the lakefront, the forest, and the field.
Shifting from angle to angle, the damselfly stops at intervals
to triangulate the picture. She dead-halts in air, threadbare
wings moving so fast, they disappear and leave her dangling,

perfectly still, a hovering stick, a broken rule. She darts
and ducks the deadly possibilities. Her survival depends
upon her ability to distinguish between lizard and rock.
She can’t afford to confuse the quality of patience

with the unshakeable promise of stone. The lizards
attract her with the humility of their devotions, imitating
the hard modesty of pebble and rock. From their head-bones
to their tails, they offer the safe shelter of a jagged ridge.

But theirs is the cold hunger of stone. In her world,
even the rocks hide deadly tongues. This is why
the damselfly darts and flits and buzzes in fits.
She too grows stiff as stone, ever on edge,

anticipating a sudden softening of the hard world,
expecting an agile pounce, awaiting a limber lunge.
She only settles because she must. She’s wired stiff
on a turtle’s back, her thousand eyes alert but unaware

that an eyeball — slow as the world’s turning —
has peeled back its green lid, that a wrinkled head
has decided to inch toward water. The mountains
and the rooted trees are about to topple, the anchored

lake, about to spill its awful weight. She hovers in place
as the turtle-shell leaves her feet with a gulp. She is elated.
She is the measure that flies in the face of nature. Now,
as the damselfly passes, every stone holds its tongue.