Seventeen is a good round number
to desecrate the soil. My
pavement is littered with carcasses.
Their wet bodies’ slow crawl
out of a shed shell, left as
a testament of a long patient sleep
for a lover. I hear everything
in the night. Those wings are still
silent but soon they’ll shake
the spring sweat from the trees.
Something inside me still
aches to die, to feel the slow rot
of aching dull pain. I will wake
covered in their legs, cicada
wings crawling over my lips to lie
in wait for a love, for a mate.
This cicada shit is out of control. I might vomit.
