I was attacked on a warm summer day,
whilst walking around a frog pond,
in the Morgan Arboretum. I was attacked
by a cloud, a vicious, voracious cloud:
of bloodthirsty mosquitoes and homicidal deer flies.
But I’m happy to report that I was rescued,
just a moment later, by a bunch of benevolent bad-asses,
full-patch members of that notorious Latin gang,
Sympetrum costiferum.

Although the police and the press persist
in referring to them as The Flying Dragons,
this is, I’m told, based upon a ridiculously bad translation
of the gang’s Latin name. They prefer to be known,
in English, as The Saffron-Winged Meadowhawks.
But I knew them that day, that lazy summer day,
as my security detail. They allowed me to hunt
for frogs, for hours, in peace.

—John Faithful Hamer, From Here: A Love Letter to Montréal (2017)