A mayfly’s lacy body stuck upon the window screen
required some effort to dislodge.
Its chitinous tattoo formed the configuration
for the Chinese character for DAY
a proclamation of how brief its arthropodial life.

The poet would say the mayfly offers “a weaver of some cloth of gold”
The scientist tells us its reason is to mate and produce more mayflies.
That an insignificant insect could evoke a sudden beauty
a surprising lexes, an insight suggests something more
than science at work.

If a poet leaves a mark, a tiny scratch or script, a few flourishing
words, a profound sentence or two, a striking monostich
a keen couplet, an intriguing tercet, a lovely haiku, a provocative graffiti
a shrewd adage, a clever quip, has her purpose been fulfilled?
Through what window do we see the world?
Through what words do we try to express the world?

Would Emily Dickenson, Marianne Moore, Elizabeth
Bishop, Sylvia Plath, Mary Oliver, Jane Kenyon
think of the mayfly as science or poetry, both or neither?