Your Garden and the Praying Mantis

Sara Dallmayr

For Rick

The abdomen of an adult mantis

Is covered with wings. One scalding

Afternoon you dripped under a black

Shirt and told me how a mantis nods 

Its wings in flight at you, in the air

A hint of green, rusted blades.

The moon tilts, a succession of 

Saucers aloft in an expanse of blue.

Dark overgrown summer, thick

With undertow, rooms so deep

Iridescent fathoms which brood

Before a storm, bow to the thunder

Heads, an engine throttle. In the arch

Over the tulips where the fireworks

Grew restless and flew into the garage,

As if we were a rogue target. Such are

The days unwinding anymore, we forget

How to plan, and unfold our shirts that is

If we remembered to fold them while they

Were still warm. The paramedics took hours.

You took time off the wall and played 

With its hands, shook its face. Time said 

Nothing. The scaffold and the cautious

Creeping gnomes, a swarm of daffodils

Scrape the side of the garage. You spoke 

Of your own death long ago, unafraid

In the room with ripples on the ceiling,

An echo of aging paint and restless wings.

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