I

At the sliding glass door she stood, looking at the night. Through her own reflection she could see, in order of diminishing certainty, the branches of a pine, the outline of flowers along the walk (in shades of gray), lawn that faded into the darkness of what she knew to be a road. When she breathed in there was a faint whistling through her nostrils; when she breathed out, her breath fogged the glass in an oval that grew outward, then shrunk on itself, as though its shape were being drawn back into her lungs. The hall tiles were cold. She looked down at her feet.

Outside on the top step, just beyond the door’s threshold, there was the shape of an insect: she stooped and found it to be a dragonfly, lying on its side. Its wings looked like the finest drawing, or thread carefully stitched and glued in place. The body was a slight stick, the stub of a pencil made of crepe. It wouldn’t move. She couldn’t tell if the eyes were seeing or not.

— Are you dead? she said aloud, but softly, not expecting to be heard.

II

I am only four years old. My mother and my sister are asleep; my father does not live here anymore. The kitchen light makes the outside warm. My long nightgown and my slippers that are bunny-twins make the inside warm. Once I held my hand out for a piece of cake (it was sunny, it was the park, it was my birthday) and while the cake was in my mother’s hand, before it reached mine, a dragonfly landed in my open palm. It stayed there without moving: it seemed a long time. I couldn’t tell: could its eyes see me?, but knew they could. I watched its wings slant downward. I said I want my cake now, and it flew away. I think the dragonfly outside the door is dead. I wonder was it my dragonfly.

III

She reached up and unlocked the door latch, then rolled it open to the left. The air was cooler outside, and both the smell of the mist and its moisture could be felt with each breath. Her reflection was gone, and she noticed more of the yard. She squatted by the fallen insect.

Fingers outstretched like a leaf, she lowered one toward the delicate net of a wing. Her heart said miracle, miracle; her thoughts said nothing, waiting. — Poor little dragonfly, she whispered.

As softly as she could, she traced an edge of that filagree. As her finger came away, with a fluttering rattle of tissue-paper and wind, the wing came to life, the other wings as well (she: soft musical gasp, held her breath!), then it seemed the insect simply disappeared into the house, and appeared again outside, grazing her ear suddenly paper-loud, suddenly silent with its passage, suddenly gone!

The pine, the flowers’ tones of gray, the dark  texture of the grass, the empty solidness of the road.

IV

In the morning, she told her mother that she touched a dragonfly and it had come back to life. Her mother smiled, imagining that last night’s wish — as she turned out the light: “Sweet dreams, sweet heart” — had touched her daughter, had given her wings for an evening flight.

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