Dragonflies
The dragonflies’ wings whip-crack
tat-tat-tat beat against each other in tandem flight
the male holding his body close enough
locked onto her trajectory at great speed
for their hind and fore tips to clatter in unison
choreographing a firecracker’s drum beat
the crackle of electrostatic
sustained for seconds, as she darts left and right
a daredevil chase, to prove to her his adroitness and ability
that he can remain hovering thorax to thorax
at this
that perfect closeness
that perfect distance
to win the chance to love her.
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I remember you on the slopes of Tintagel
soft marshes of skin and berried cheeks
how we whispered no hay prisa on repeat, and listened
to Joanna Newsom as your border collie slept in the cab
the warm salt-sweet of you rising like coral from beneath the sheets
and how we went to stand naked in the night
so strong it could almost push us over
the beam lights and distant pound of percussion across the bay
and opened our arms to it, and how it felt like
I was stood in the fire with you
not just for the storm, but for love
the risking of my skin for you
how you’d told me there were other lovers
but I turned and faced you full-brunt
and scared and awake
even knowing I might break
and opened, and chose this kiss
and made it everything as if it were
the only we had, and knew
that love in its brightest, purest
knew that life
is not a security blanket
a plateau, a promise, a contract
but a hazarded thing, a brazen letting
a wade into the breakers
a dying into flame, to meet this
the precarious and constant flash
of the only thing that is ever real.
I remember her how she stood in the kitchen in the Welsh glens
the land of dragons, wine-eyed and woodsoaked
when all had gone to bed
and how as we were cleaning up I banged and slammed
the cups and plates from the sheer pressure of wanting you
and how in a rare moment of last-ditch boldness before
we headed to separate tents
I dared to grab your waist, push you against the basin
take your mouth into mine
and how this was the same fire,
that I risked what I was and laid it on the plates
to be here, alive
and our bodies fell into each other tumbling
as long as the fire lived
you ensconced in my choosing to be aflame,
but, then overwhelmed for fear of burning up
I pulled back, held your face in my hands as you looked
at me grinning with the wildest eyes I’d ever seen, wild as a thistle
wild as a meteor, shine-lipped and bestial and split wide open — daring me
again to rise and put on the crown of life
but I turned down, stuttered, felt to take a breath
regain composure, to corral the moment and try to take you
again, slowly, now that I thought the border had been crossed
and I was safe,
and how you then pulled away
denying this lesser dance
this choreography beneath your highest, an absconding
no longer the violet heat of true sharing
but something weaker, a greyer ember
a sidestep as if I could be the moment’s master
an attempt to own love and pen it into form
to retreat to a smaller safety, a containment chamber
where nothing much is risked and
I might feel large enough to touch you
but that this could not meet life’s drum beat, the beat
of your wings at great speed
that tandem flight
that perfect closeness
that perfect distance,
that did not win the chance to love her.
