The Brightest Firefly

The red moon is low and still he sits, a guardian,

brandishing his tangerine locks as a duchess does a golden crown.

Watching the swollen emerald earth sleep in cobalt twilight, he stays a lamp in autumn's early darkness,

awake through mystic purple clouds, sparkling out of night.

Now the warm mists rise, as does a fire-sky, splashed across cascading planes of chrome and glass.

A soft river of fog smoothes across the loch, and bright Chester boats are sloshing against excited shores.

His post is empty once again, and for hours of dawn to come, he may briefly rest, bare legs crossed as he paints his blush nude on cold, clean sheets of linen white.

His eyes hang heavy against daybreak, and yet he'd rather write to me, of dreams, and drinks of fortune,

of Kings and chilly London streets, hand-in-hand as the train shoots flecks of sepia down the rusty underground.

December breaks with shrill, grey and I, though haunted by the ghosts of opportunites missed, am glad.

For it brought the world, this darling ginger child, now come fully grown. A lilac in the lawn, bending low with crystal dew;

my heart, my breath, my firefly, my beaming autumn prince.