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Poetry

Summer Fireworks

Kathryn Bonnez
issue six

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Don’t know why they ever left
or why now they’ve returned 
but the fireflies are back this summer.
Yes, I’ve kept good company

in the meantime: stars that bloom 
blue-green, the crescent – half –
whole of the moon, washed in silver
or a pale whisper in the wind.

So far way – another world
another time – I can’t take them
personally, only worship 
at a distance their cold perfection.

Ah, but the fireflies!
Blinking on-off, on-off, on-off
right here right now in front of me.
Pops of blue light as elusive 

as when we were children, catching
them in our mason jars, screwing on 
tight the metal lid punched full of holes 
with Daddy’s screwdriver.

The magic didn’t last. We’d thought
the show was just for us but learned 
soon enough they do what they do
not because of, but in spite of us.

Tonight the fireflies mesmerize
me into my seven-year-old self
and I think How can I not love 
the world when it’s raining stars?