Each birthday June bugs
headbutted porchlights like mad angels.
I loved their wings’ brown olives
fizzing through night.
My strawberry hog-shaped birthday cake
heralded summer joys. A space pirate
flying saucer captain, I led
my dog lieutenant to planets
in our backyard. I made
Taco Bell hot sauce packets joust
with toothpick spears, their bloodstains
still on the living room ceiling.
A week before fall classes in August,
I dug for dinosaur bones
in mom’s garden, all the June bugs died
but I found their larvae, grubs’ moon-pale
fingers greasing through soil. I wept
to wait a schoolyear for their wings.
Eric Fisher Stone is from Fort Worth, Texas. He recently acquired his MFA in Creative Writing and the Environment degree from Iowa State University. His poetry has appeared in various journals. His first full length poetry collection, The Providence of Grass was published by Chatter House Press in 2018.
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