Cicadas
       

All week cicadas have rattled
above me as I walk behind
the lawn mower, or when
I'm crouched collecting baseballs
the neighbor's kids accidentally
chucked into our yard, or standing
naked, dripping in the shower.
Here it is, the last week in July,
summer beginning to come to a close.
A chorus curls up from within
the tree line, rising and getting
sharper, a yellow fluttering
sound, like a fog crusting over
and settling, seeping into cracked
window seals, the slats of lawn chairs,
burrowing its way into walls.
The days have been getting shorter
for a month. It's as if we've been
scared to speak of fireflies sparking
in the backyard after supper,
or the way the Fourth sidled up
and disappeared like smoke after
dousing the coals. How the season
pulses gently and then circles
louder, louder, reaching us all,
then quiets, littering ashes—
dried-out brown shells, forked, tiny claws
hooked on branches well into fall.
And we, listening even then,
trying to remember those calls.

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Copyright © 2022 Robert Fillman All rights reserved
from House Bird
Terrapin Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission