Insects don’t have the time to spare
for heartbreak. It’s not in their lifecycle.

But the glow still grows and goes out
once upon a summer night when the fireflies

orient each other to the right partner for a single
dance. Both fade into a starstruck end.

First to fall is her floating, seeking partner.
Then she blinks, retreats with their

eggs at the edge of safety and envisions
the next summer when their offspring will

enchant the spaces between. When I asked the
campside hen and her rooster how they met,

their days together had been too long, their language
too short for them to articulate an answer.

And it’s plain as their bold plumage, what
the peacock means to his peahen

when they gaze at each other each morning.
Still, he calls out for her near the coals

asmoke at the lunchtime campfire.