The Leiry Loop

It fluttered above the coffee stain,

landed—then stopped—

and caught the attention of the poet

with a lonely pocket and

a writer’s block.

He wrote:

‘Send an angel with a sword

and an accusing finger

for the dragonfly

beside a smashed-up paper cup

with one less wing and a

broken heart.’

But the devil came instead and

took away his mind and pen,

along with his idea that the dragonfly

is almost a butterfly

and never a bird.