Trial of the Mayfly

In spring, a live film
on the water’s surface

like a wind without
point of motion,

a gear gone wild
without its mechanism,

a thought grown thin
on the edge of its acumen.

*

When the judge was called,
the laws of hunger broken,
he coolly thought of precedents,

cockchafers and grasshoppers
guzzling victuals of the Tyrol,
processions for the non-professing

creatures to offer the impression
of order and punishment where,
supposing malediction, a male

might still be brought to court.
But the mayfly does not live beyond
the night—light on light on light.

*

In Gunpowder Falls, you tie the lead,
that bit that always breaks, onto the line.

Wings follow close behind, a delicate
business. Your father had his wife tie

flies in spring; something about skin,
that appetite inkling. You think of him,

one spring rewriting the next, relaxing
knots you thought were permanent.

Then catch a trout, river colored,
too young to keep or take too seriously.

*

Forget what I imagined
love would look like or what
I’d reasonably do for it.

Mostly, I waited and grieved,
thinking it mattered that it’d been
the most unlikely  him.

I could claim that we’d mistook
the breadth and choice of language
for the breadth and choice of life,

the mayfly for her appetite.

*

What closing statement
could the judge have given?

Take pity.

He was certain whatever came next
would bring catastrophe,

but he was also sure the body
was the only way forward.

How sweet the ritual and moral order.

How knowingly we risk.

Take pity.