This Day
by Cindy Zhao

Runestone, volume 12

They come from the earth
and the curved arm of the cedar,
from the orange streetlight gibbous —

whorled-wing fractals
pinwheeling by mottled sunfall.

By your next step the street will empty
of murmur. Just open your hand.
Blink once. Come to the hum-slight
pulse of a scarcely remembered hour

where their spindle-legs spun choreograph
for the orphaned calico we nursed
before she disappeared in the night.

To be unafraid of the mayflies is to know
that this day is their first and last.

This day is the first in existence.
Where their silken veins also
marble the sky. And being is a breath only
on the path of their flight.

We are here today, too, for the first time.

From the instant green mottle swells
with milky dew to the day
the last tumble rises to dust.

Where the flutter passes your brow —
and pads forward on its pilgrimage.