Minute lights of white wings flitting
through shafts of sun between trees.
*
Spread wings:
a ravished
bivalve
crusted with mud.
Rough symmetries
long after
the gull’s feast.
*
A shower, a flurrying out
from the maple’s canopy—
wings turned wingèd
seed pods in my hand.
*
I’ve wanted this.
A liquid transition.
The clarity before
and after.
An eye like a thousand
dew drops
sees the fount
of nectar
and lands there.
This poem first appeared in A Different Physics (Red Mountain Press, 2018).
—
Lisa Rosenberg is the author of A Different Physics, winner of the 2024 American Legacy Book Award for Poetry. A former space program engineer trained as a physicist, her writing spans poetry, multidisciplinary essays, and satire. Her work has been recognized by a Djerassi Leonardo Residency, Wallace Stegner Fellowship, and MOSAIC America Fellowship. She served as Poet Laureate of San Mateo County, California, and is a frequent speaker on the confluence of arts and sciences.
