i woke up
troubled
from a dream

 it was about fireflies

they had flown up
into the sky
and blinked out

in the dark of my bedroom
i searched for my
smokes
something
anything
i wondered why

i hadn't seen any
lately
and in my curiosity
had found
they are an
endangered species

thinking about it
i remembered
my friends growing up
like little johnny
and george
and dushawn
and emilio
and i missed them some

back in the day
crotona park at night
you couldn't walk
more than twenty feet
without one
flying drunkenly
into your face
your hair
your eye
they were everywhere
like roaches
who'd died
and gone to heaven
angelic beetles
filled with the
light of G*d

it seems like
every summer
i grew up
there were less
and less of them
and of my friends

i put two thoughts together
and my heart
pulsed in grief

the things i loved
as a child
blinking out
becoming bittersweet
memory
like little johnny
george
emilio
dushawn
fireflies
in the park

those summers
in the bronx
when i was a child