Cicada
The other day, I trapped her in a cedar box
Turned the heat up as high as I could
Watched as the hot coals took their toll
Watched sweat like magnifying glass on her skin
Read the bright sigils and symbols she etched on her arms and legs
A glyph of screaming marsupial, a silhouette of a Southern cemetery
A hieroglyphic spectre, still-lifes of aster bloom and honey locust thorn
Magic signs to remind her of her home
Spells meant to drive her roots down South
(She’s a weeping willow on muddy river banks)
Watched as the heat slowed down the bouncing of her knee
Slowed down
The seeking of her eyes
Slowed down
The endless puns and jokes and flirts
(And the beating of her wings)
I’ll pin her down if she’ll let me
—
Endless debate
“They sound like “weehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhrrrrrr”
“No! They sound like shushshushushuhshushush”
“WEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRR”
“SHHHHRRRHRRHHHHSSHHRRHSHHHHR”
Endless laughter
—
The year that I was born, they rose from the ground, took to the trees and screamed
These yelly bois, screaming to breed, and fuck, and maybe just chill a minute and enjoy
Then they passed, and their children scrounged in the dirt for 17 years
Rose from the warm earth, like Lazarus with a loud temper
Screeched to high heaven
Fucked and smoked and drank, (as is the way of things down here)
And now the godforsaken bug-eyed grandchildren have arrived
Making the hot air shimmer with their cat-calls and sex moans
And I find, this time, that I’m sad to think of them going,
Knowing that I’ll know only one or two more generations
And they’ll keep on with the cacophonous rutting
and then I’ll be gone
—
When I was a boy
A neighbor kid caught a cicada for my bug collection
Gave her to me still alive and buzzing
Caught in a tall glass and sheet of newspaper beneath
He watched me pin her down in the cardboard box
Next to the Polyphemus moth, the honey bee, the grasshopper king
She was gorgeous.
Eyes like blood clots and wings made of glyphs and etched sigils
Watched
as her legs curled and slowed down
Watched as wings fluttered
Watched as she
slowly
slowly
slowly
Slowed down
Stopped
She was gorgeous and I did an ugly thing to her.
She was alive and fecund and vibrant and still I pinned her down and for years it haunted me.
I caught her in her prime and I put her in a box of corpses and made her mine.
I swore to never do it again.
