Firefly. Cricket. Two Elms.
Firefly flitting in a pint-size canning jar
& shadow dancing beside the boy’s
bed with its green-glowing, love-me-now
language eager for some answer to come from
the yard or along the creek bed from one or another
of those who might glimpse his fleeting love-message.
The boy in bed holds on tightly to childhood & doesn’t
know how to read the firefly’s language, the firefly
flickerings bouncing off his dresser, the wall &
his closet’s door on a sultry June night
while a bothersome cricket close by
in the bottom of a clothes closet,
keeps up a sour string of violin notes
in its rasping of misery, of loneliness.
The boy stares up at the firefly’s dancing
shadows on his ceiling while the two elms
beyond the bedroom’s dormer window stand
guard, seemingly ageless & unable to
grow weary of their place in his life.
Portage Magazine 