Lightning Bugs

I remember fluid, sticky warm magma
Before the toxic change of seasons
Summer skin to snowsuits I want
To cut the tips off my fingers to
Feel again. We are rats that remember
The junkyard abundance, the days
Of flesh and warm bellies.

We watched them disappear
With the quick sickness of simian
Diseases. One after another
Like fireworks flash and burn.

Looking at pictures, I could
smell you again for one
slippery second, disappearing
like lightning ozone,
a sound too late and prickling
hairs.

Does the moon also call dogs
like cracked glue memories of
a place you've been but can't go
back to? Does your voice slip
from your throat with the breath
of last words, and can I
catch it in a jar, like fireflies?


—Embley Veronica Noechel


Embley Veronica Noechel's work has been published in numerous literary magazines. She lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.