Dan's poem recommendation

I'm reading GRANTED, an uneven but occasionally brilliant book of poems by Mary Szybist, and I was struck by the haunting beauty of this poem. One of the pleasures here, for me, is that she resists making a neat, easy metaphor of the situation she encounters; she lets it remain mysterious, to herself and to us, rather than reducing the possible readings in pursuit of one-to-one relationships between the animal and human worlds. I hope you enjoy it, and I'd love to see any thoughts you have!



IN TENNESSEE I FOUND A FIREFLY


Flashing in the grass; the mouth of a spider clung
          to the dark of it: the legs of the spider
held the tucked wings close,
          held the abdomen still in the midst of calling
with thrusts of phosphorescent light--

When I am tired of being human, I try to remember
          the two stuck together like burrs. I try to place them
central in my mind where everything else must
          surround them, must see the burr and the barb of them.
There is courtship, and there is hunger. I suppose
          there are grips from which even angels cannot fly.
Even imagined ones. Luciferin, luciferase.
          When I am tired of only touching,
I have my mouth to try to tell you
          what, in your arms, is not erased.

---

Note: Luciferin is the chemical substance present in the cells of fireflies that produces light when oxidized under the catalytic effects of luciferase. Also, fireflies light up as part of their mating rituals. (Some species of fireflies, known as "femme fatale fireflies," actually mimic other fireflies' light patterns to lure gullible males, who they then eat.)