Those
fireflies
spark
in the hum and burr of twilight,
when our legs begin to itch from the day’s rambles.
Chiggers and tall grass have left their mark,
a tattoo peeled away in the bath.
Suppose it’s open season on childhood,
where we can mutter warnings of anthills and bats that
swoop around the trees with a sound like
a magician’s cape unfurling. When the day burns out
there is nothing left but thirst and hiraeth and we move as one,
like a murmuration,
to the barnlights calling us home.
Header photograph © Asher.
Amanda Crum is a writer and artist whose work can be found in publications such as Eastern Iowa Review, Blue Moon Literary and Art Review, and Dark Eclipse, as well as in several anthologies. Her first chapbook of horror poetry, The Madness In Our Marrow, made the shortlist for a Bram Stoked Award nomination in 2015. She currently lives in Kentucky with her husband and two children.
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