Firefly by Gladys Justin Carr

I dabble in wings in variations of flux
Heraclitus is my friend everything in the world
is my living room I am not pretty
but let me show you my light
here I land on your fingertip
no no do not crush me
I fear the dark as you do
there are others I could have visited
the bombardier beetle the death’s head moth
a flying spider or two but
I like your shuttered home
it bristles with alacrity
on your wall the action-oriented Picasso
has your blended eyes & half your neck
shafts of a broken body after suicide
a vase old flowers bend as if
bowing to you prince or pauper
you write to save your life
to give everything a name
mine is Lampyris of Coleoptera
how’s that for a title well
it did inspire Heber in his tour through Ceylon
to say (tilting purple) that I light my lamp
of love (to put it mildly)
weightless I am with my multiple lenses

you not so much you are stuck
lumped curdled grouched grunged
hardwired three-quarters blind
I will teach you 16 ways to see again
through your nocturnal eye
you will see pieces of planets
crash of sunblades
you will sew up the stars
you will see through walls
of the universe long after
I have fallen on your table
but you will never
fly

---

about the author:

I am the author of Augustine’s Brain – The Remix and coauthor of Edge by Edge (Toadlily Press). The following chapbooks are forthcoming: American Love Story, Spectrum, and Spring, you bitch. My work is featured in The Best Of Toadlily Press: New And Selected Poems. In the past seven years, I’ve been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize.