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"Fireflies"

By Karl KirchweyPosted Tuesday, July 12, 2005, at 6:43 AM ET

Click here to listen to Karl Kirchwey read this poem.

Those nights the fireflies love best—
windless and a little humid—
when they are current in the pasture,
busy in their greeny traffic,
signaling beneath the stars
("Like a nightclub's marquee," she says,
remembering Fifty-Second Street),
then I think pleasure is like this,
accomplished in a perfect silence
undeceived by loneliness.

And in the morning on the lawn,
seedpods of Eastern cottonwood
lie scattered open, white and brilliant,
as if true to some child's account
of what pleasure becomes with daylight.

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Karl Kirchwey is the author of four books of poems, most recently At the Palace of Jove. He is the recipient of a Rome Prize in Literature and of NEA, Guggenheim, and Ingram Merrill grants.

Click here to visit Robert Pinsky's Favorite Poem Project site.

Please note: Because Slate's backlog of accepted poems is substantial, poetry
editor Robert Pinsky will not be reading new submissions until December 2005.

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