before the fireflies
made an appearance
about the time cicadas
began their buzz
when the men were lighting
after dinner ****
and moms clanging dishes,
a noisy resentment
I was on the street, with brothers
named Harry and Johnny
playing baseball, mostly
missing our catches
it had not registered in our grade school heads
dusk was not good light for hardball
nor had we learned what it was like
to see anything die
save the bees we suffocated in jars
(forgive us our sins, Father),
though that night, the last day of school,
the stars were all aligned
IF the creator wanted us to see
mangled mortality:
he came around the corner of
Vandenburg and Vine
in his graduation gift--a hot new Chrysler,
all chrome and crank
the telephone pole he hit didn't see him, or
complain--it remained straight, tall
when the driver went through the windshield
and his skull introduced itself to wood and pitch
my dad was the first to come through
the door, though other fathers followed
I recall colors, though muted
by the fading light
red, red, pink, even white and gray and blond--his hair,
flattop still in place
well, it was on the half head I saw
from across the street
where Harry, Johnny and I were conscripted
to stand
my mother brought a yellow towel,
to stop bleeding I thought I heard
but my father never used it, telling her
instead to bring the green army blanket
which he draped over the boy's body the very second
before we saw the ambulance lights
by then, the fireflies were beginning
their dance
we were told to go inside, to hide our
eyes from the body on a stretcher
the slamming of the ambulance doors,
which I watched through our window
while my father used Lava soap to wash his hands;
then my mother pulled the drapes
blocking from view the pole, the crushed car,
and the glow of fireflies drifting above it all