PAUL MOOREHEAD

Cracking Amber

Once a kid who probably snared lightning
bugs in jars, I might now say, “Stay as you are,

just a little forever longer,” as though amber
does any good for the fly. Green as you are,

you won’t settle among the fossils. Who
could find stillness so impossible as you? Are

you aware of those chancy mitoses, of unknotting,
of quickening as unstoppably as you are?

Become, then, unmoored, become some more.
Get flying, defiant of that amber. As you are.