Mating Call

A week of whirling glory:

day and night

massed clouds of shad flies spinning

in sexual frenzy stir the indigo clarity

of the just-set sun.

Afterwards, drawn to the porch light,

they cling to the bright white side of the house,

slender grey profiles of stillness

stark in death.

At breakfast, my eye catches half a wing,

snagged in the dew-damp grass, fluttering

in morning's first breath.