Dragonfly

She spent years underwater,

feeling God prepare her body

below the sensible bulrushes,

below the savage certainty of need.

She made a home there

inside that holy hunger,

her terrible jaw a bloody cup

filling over and over again.

One day it would all make sense.

One day—

just before dawn, on a reed,

she dragged herself from the deep,

carrying her entire life on her back

—and waited—

for the old skin to split open,

for the new flesh to spill out,

for two sets of wings to fill

with the white fire banked inside her,

after all those years sunk.

As if the only thing that mattered

was the moment she became something else.

As if becoming

was the only oath she had to keep.