Hard to believe a huge tinker toy can float.
How disparate components hold together

in such photo-voltaic array, lights
from the flying lab traveling the night sky,

visible as it passes Venus and Orion’s belt.
But what I think about are the painted ladies,

butterflies encapsulated in space. Where are
their fields of mallow or hollyhock?

Do atomic clocks record their thirst for thistle?
Can astronauts on thermal porches sip ice tea,

sit on rocking pods, watch gossamer wings
open and close, the way I stay by woods’ edge

long after the space station has re-configured
its attitude. All evening I look at fireflies, mini-

novas, cattails like stowage platforms where
red-winged blackbirds nest. Where frogs

twang in concert and micro-gravity signifies
mist, weightless, ghosting a canorous pond.