At dusk in midwest summers as a child
The fireflies drew me down into the dark,
Down where the ruddy orchard had gone wild
And berry vines set thorns around their sparks.
A jelly jar with cheesecloth as a lid
Swooped through the heavy air to find its mark.
Live lightning lit the glass and swam and slid
Through all the dark a six-year-old could hold,
And when she called me from the porch I hid,
Though once I ran, obedient, to enfold
My mother silhouetted on the stair,
The one bare bulb behind her burning gold.
She showed me how in childhood she would wear
The firefly on her finger like a ring.
With one white moon of nail while I stood there,
She snapped the lucent body at the wing,
Then fixed the pulsing globe to me with blood
And I thought I would never shake the thing.
So when I heard her voice command, I’d scoot
Behind the apple branches out of sight,
And breathing in the rot of fallen fruit,
Return my mother’s jewels to the night.
The fireflies drew me down into the dark,
Down where the ruddy orchard had gone wild
And berry vines set thorns around their sparks.
A jelly jar with cheesecloth as a lid
Swooped through the heavy air to find its mark.
Live lightning lit the glass and swam and slid
Through all the dark a six-year-old could hold,
And when she called me from the porch I hid,
Though once I ran, obedient, to enfold
My mother silhouetted on the stair,
The one bare bulb behind her burning gold.
She showed me how in childhood she would wear
The firefly on her finger like a ring.
With one white moon of nail while I stood there,
She snapped the lucent body at the wing,
Then fixed the pulsing globe to me with blood
And I thought I would never shake the thing.
So when I heard her voice command, I’d scoot
Behind the apple branches out of sight,
And breathing in the rot of fallen fruit,
Return my mother’s jewels to the night.
