Cicada Nights

As sun flickers
blown out by the moon
Afternoon pulls
covers up over its head
hiding from the monsters.
Like candelabrum lit
in a dark and distant hall
stars snap on.

When the cool night
chills the flakes of wings
clipped to the
Cicada's back
they chime in
the sound of heat
like the pang of
a shower too hot.

Brass streams
cut through
the hanging air
to my window
airing out my
muddled mind.

Then it stops.
The sound cuts off
as if some merciful
passer by shoved his thumb
in the piercing thing.
Momentary bliss washes over me
though prematurely
interrupted because
It will continue again
as if nothing ever happened

Cicada nights
storm my memory
of jarring lightning bugs
and netting flutters by
with my brother.
Gathering like medals
scrapes and bruises
on every joint.
By the end of
those summer days
we were well decorated
admirals of makeshift adventures.
All the while
the cicadas cadenced
our afternoon marches
into marmalade evening skies
and florid fuchsia sunsets.
When the moon complained
we're out too late
we dismounted our
tree limbs we rode like
cowboy-horses
landing on our knees
staining them green and brown.
We declined dinner
having sustained
our savage marooned
appetites on mud pies and worms,
we recounted our
backyard triumphs
and playground conquests.

Cicada nights
played throughout
our reluctant baths washing away
the proof of where we went
and what we saw that day.
As we laid for bed
the cicada chimed on
pausing for a cool breeze
and continuing again
as if nothing ever happened.