fireflies

Fidgeting under the steel
of the moonbeams,
the boy watches
little insects
scuttle
into little cracks
on the pavement.
There are the
usual friends
with him –
the smoke, wrapping
around his slight shoulders,
the trembling leaves,
whispering constantly,
the cicadas,
eternally wooing him,
the stars,
talking to each other
of distant dreams,
but not the fireflies –
now dead or hidden,
waiting for another summer.