Wendy Carlisle

Darker

Fireflies, the paper says,
          are dying off.  Tonight fewer
                    and fewer in the herb beds.   

Don’t I see that the garden is
          darker?  Yes.  Now that you say
                    so it is, although  

I hadn’t noticed, caught up
          as I was in morning.  I buy. 
                    They sell. In town,  

a parking meter blows up.  The curtains
          in a window gone. 
                    The window gone.   

A fly sparks in the rosemary. 
          Much later, in the fennel stalks,
                    another spark. 

Desert Altar
by Nancy Dunaway