Unbroken damsel of the water's edge,
poised as if she were living.
Weren't you crafted from gold, in the riverbed?

Never such a shining thing was born of mud:
Mirages for wings and clockwork for blood.

How fast did the moving hands that
tolled her final minute tick?
What eternal, turning clock
knew the second her wing-beats stopped?
And where’s the scratch that shows the place
death touched her glassy face?

She might have been a broach or pin
with diamonds on her silver skin,
who never had life in her hinges and bolts.

But there she lies
with twinkling compound eyes -