Fireflies

In the summer, he filled my head with lightning bugs

migrating from his pockets

He was magic and why I learned to breathe

Underwater

Just so I could catch him alone.

I loved him even then,

when it wasn’t time.

He was furnishing his new home

Between the temple and the base

of my skull

Where he kept the lights on for years.

sprouts from the harbour

storms like the sea

His head filled with lightning bugs

Too.

He called them fireflies

It’s how we floated into the stratosphere.

He was the streetlight at the

End of every road

that was yellow from time to time.

born from the storm

fled in a drain

Empty from the neck up now

Abandoned for fall

I saw the last bug lift into the night

Making with it one last wish

Turning embers into ash.

one lone drop

from the gutter

falls

All the lights turned red.

He lost the keys

He exited through my ear canal

And I entered to clean up the mess

for the first time in years

one gutter dries

thunder somewhere froths

but even now,

with a head scooped of lightning bugs

or fireflies

or embers of any

even now his pockets are dry

Inside-out

and he sprouts from nothing

I call to him for the lightning, the fire

I call to him for the leaving, the fleeing

For making what was once brimming

Now empty

and yet I know it’s not so empty still.

I loved him even then,

when it wasn't time.