My guardian angel is a dragonfly
yours was a gypsy moth and I'm sorry. 

I met my guardian angel for the
first time when I was four 
and my mother and my father and I walked 
along the edge of the creek in Fleetwood
before I had brothers and before
I lost the marshmallows in my cheeks.
The moss was slippery but I never
fell even though I was wobbly-kneed 
and anxious like skipping stones.
My angel had wide hub-caps for eyes
and she hovered at a distance.
Her whisper was enough to hold sturdy
my thighs and pull blankets of creek
water over my mushroom feet--
told me I was the kind of dancer
without shoes and without music
The type of dancer who used the rain, 
over-sized t-shirts,
and unplugged electric guitars. 
That was back when animals still listened to
me when I told them I was their sibling.
I walked on all fours in the grass
to uncover acorns with the squirrels
in the melting March. I split watermelon
rinds with the foxes in August when
the sun made us all rancid and sweet.
They called me sister and my angel 
called me "Sarah," and she knew how
far away to watch from.
We don't all get dragonflies I know.
And she lets me fall sometimes but she's 
only five careful cellophane wing beats
away from picking me up and reminding 
me that I rip skirts on tree branches
and eat blue berries like a black bear. 
I can't talk to them anymore-- even
my guardian angel is only a glance.
The foxes speak in a language somewhere 
between German and French and I only
speak Spanish and almost-English--
the dragon flies speak the language 
of five-year-old hands and grass.

Yes, I know, 
you had a gypsy moth and she sewed both
of our lips shut. Picked you up
by the loops of your jeans
and tied you to the trees like a 
marionette-- She said we were her
babies and she never taught you how to 
speak like animals do but she told
you that the best place to live
from was in her silk and in the trees.
I know you watched enough maple trees die
to realize that angels are imperfect 
like skipping stones-- and love isn't
enough to stop your knees from bleeding.
You don't need to wrap your scabs in silk
to feel alive. 

Come with me and we'll love like
dragonflies and clean out our
cuts in the creek water. We don't need silk
and we don't need street lamps to
beat our heads against.
I only need you and hub-caps for eyes.
I love you like a dragonfly even if
we sometimes get strung up in the silk.