firefly

By Ryan Bresingham

Translation By Agnes Lawrence Pelton

A mason jar cupped between my palms, 

my eyes flicker as the moon eclipses 

and blue night dangles like a crescent 

over my wooded backyard 

Silence severed by the crooning nocturnal song 

of crickets chirping, cicadas humming 

And from the growing darkness light 

is born, 

firefly after firefly blinking awake, 

a golden glow washing over 

while the mating dance begins, organs 

of luminescence spreading, sparking, 

Signaling up, 

up, 

I lift the jar up, 

and two soft beetles pierce 

the hollowness 

The moonlit glass rim 

flaring like a streak of sunshine, brighter 

and brighter, lightning in a bottle 

Under the sea of stars and constellations, 

heavenly bodies about to align as wings 

flutter and flick, and from the burning 

passion of two soaring soulmates frail 

Fingers warm and my wilted heart cracks, 

veins peeling like dying petals, 

a release 

of a shallow breath fogging the glass. 

The female glow worm flees yet the male 

frees his wings and settles among the fog, 

antennae sweeping, skimming, 

stroking, pinions detaching, unearthing 

A face for abdomen, with snow-white 

skin, hair grey as clouds and thin 

as spiderweb, 

hourglass eyes red as blood, a self portrait of the devil 

on the shoulder, a dichotomy of 

light and dark, a necessary evil to balance 

the body, the soul, the universe,

and the surrounding fireflies 

pulse, p u l s e, p u l s e 

with fearful flashes, warding off the veiled 

predator now unveiled, stalking, storming, 

seething, 

before the lid clasps madly shut

Light dimming, the darkness calling.

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Ryan Bresingham is a writer and aspiring screenwriter based in Los Angeles currently studying Creative Writing and Film Studies at Pepperdine University. He is a strong advocate for the Oxford comma, and he finds immense beauty in the power of storytelling.