Catching Lightning Bugs

Catching Lightning Bugs

As dusk begins to settle past my window's bars,
The smell of stale tobacco returns me
To dusk at home, when I poked holes in jars' lids,
So the tiny lightning bugs could breathe.

I headed out to the woods in my backyard,
Where lightning bugs often twinkle at night,
But twinkled quietly. It was so hard
To see them flash against the sky's dimming light.

There! Back behind the mossy dogwood tree!
I lay the jar down on the damp, thick grass, 
And caught him in my cupped hands, stealing
His light, encasing him in the glass.

When the trees circled me to block my path,
My mother's voice reached to pull me back.
It was never easy for me to find
My way home, with only my bug lantern.

My mother calls me still. I need to go.
I shake black, rusted bars that never move,
Begging God to light my way home,
And set me free, so that I can catch love.

She sleeps silently surrounded by dark,
And had I only one more night out
In the woods, I'd catch enough bugs to find her.
The prison guard orders, 'Lights out!'
Darkness.



Refrigerator

My Cousin Stevie is big and fat and looks like our Kenmore fridge
only with a huge round head on top, between the double doors.
He has fat brothers and fat sisters
who have trouble squeezing out of station wagons.

The fattest one was Cousin Blew Up.
We call him that because he blew up.
Really.  He ate a whole six foot sub,
And then ate the crumbs off his shirt.
Then his fat stomach exploded and he died
With his head in a bowl of popcorn.

They couldn't bury him right away
because he was so fat he couldn't fit in a coffin.
They bought a piano box and got him two graves,
just like Stevie has to buy two plane tickets.
Blew Up and Stevie could never fit on Dad's big TV sofa
I wonder if they'll both fit in Heaven.