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ISSN: 1941-4137 |
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Volume Six Issue Two |
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Fireflies — for Wally You'd drive me home the long way through Nobleton and Kleinburg, their window-dark houses — our own windows down, our summer dark, its colorless moon — my lower meadow thick with fireflies, their green ghostlight, the listless complaints of cricket frogs. You'd stop the engine, stop the frogs. Dark wingtips brushed our cheeks, humming; we'd speak of angels and the where? of them. You'd drive me home the short way through Unionville and Markham — the vee-dub's meager heater, our winter-tight windows, their ice mandalas — the meadow thick with ice and silent, starry dark above, and silent. You'd turn in — the snowplow would've already been by — you'd stop at the house, engine running. Our starry dark: we'd speak of space and wonder if auroras are alive? The night your father died — before his time, before his time — alone you drove the long way, drove the short way, drove the long way, up the long drive, knocked. I opened, and we spoke of nothing at all but only held on and remembered that somewhere there must be fireflies. When I waved your car down the road for what would be the final time, corn blades trembled in the wind of your passing. |
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