To mate on the wing,
now that’s a trick I want to learn—

hopped up on pheromones,
legs twitching,
wings flapping impossibly fast ….

For that I’d take a spin
as an insignificant lepidoterid.
For that I’d give up
all my nature programs,
rock music, erotic poetry.

I’d even do
penance in the egg.
I’d crawl through adolescence on my belly
eating none of the food I love, eating nothing
but cabbage, cabbage, cabbage.

For that instant
of sudden weightlessness,
fluttering with my beloved on the verge
of a holy convulsion

I await my turn.