In The and The, and: Damsels

84 MERRILL GILFILLAN IN THE AND THE That pretty-in-all-six-senses music— they make it by rubbing their legs together you know: Smoke and flame from Hollywood thrillers, agents smash Carolingian towns shattering glass, houses, flocks, fruit carts and hens exploding, pedestrians thrown high in the air, never seen again: In the name of old white beans from dusty Dove Creek the size of kestrel eggs, hatch! hatch! plump as pullets, dressed warm with rosemary, oil: For the person who has everything/ nothing—no middle ground to clear— And the redtail fat above, coseismal on box elder, so near we smell her ruffled nether thatch— ooo la la— Eso es vivir. 85 MERRILL GILFILLAN DAMSELS By the second day we registered the damselflies resting in the pines just overhead, felt the many eyes, turned slowly in our chairs— demoiselles resting in an utter stillness on every other cranny or twig, every tree, copper-carmine, blanched lapis, tails hiked in the cool air. And when the wind quickened, the full armada dropped in pure consensus to perch tiptoe on the buds of sage a foot above the ground below, a shift unanimous as leaves in gust— then up, moments later, back to the pines, the very twig, back to the mind’s amino sky. The lacquer blue dropped down to investigate my watch. Touch of a hair— what can they weigh? Moment of the day. To meet the earth so slightly. Needlepoint toes. What can the hummingbirds think? Inca piccolos. ...