secure (copyright 2000, kathleen pilchowski) a needle that day pinned my hopes and yet the need still probes and gropes science has classified my insect heart and yet spirit has strengthed it to depart living long I saw that life is brief and in all my trials, fear is chief I think like a dragonfly, dance for the wicked glow like an angel whose spirit has fled iron carries air, and more besides a blood that flows but never resides I am secure in the knowledge that hope withers, dies and is reborn as determination, which love decries.