NEAR THE POND

by Lyn Lifshin

tonight the grass is
full of fireflies, a
rhinestone quilt of
glitter, blinking
thru darkness just
like that summer
with the ex-con poet
in the leaves.
Behind my house,
sand rippled, like at
the shore or a
desert. Nights were
thick and hot. He
couldn’t stay. I knew
it tho I opened my
body, every part of me
to him mornings we
made eggs Benedict
and he read me Sylvia
Plath. Already the
days were getting
shorter. Summer does
not linger in upstate
New York. But the
glitter camouflaged
what we didn’t want
to see. The fireflies
were doing a mating
dance, a mating to death
somebody once said,
irresistible and wild as
a tarantella, dazzling
as ex-con poets
hitching across the
U.S. because a poem
or photo lured him


*Lyn's website:
http://www.lynlifshin.com/books.htm