Church IV by Paul Luikart
The Long Dream of a Cicada
In the fiftieth year of our marriage
we hear singing under the house.
The kitchen seems to be the heart of it
so we sit there
and take apart the floorboards
with our fingernails
until it is found crooning--
the box of cherry wood
held together by honey
and filled with cicadas.
Fifty years they were here.
Fifty years I knelt at their coffin
and worshipped how they
stayed.
Fifty years they were dying
and now, like swans,
they trumpet the end.
I made this for you.
I fell the tree.
I built the casket.
I gathered the insects
and set them inside.
I picked the wings from their backs
and like this I became God to them.
Because they loved me so immensely,
they did not sing
for half of a century.
They slept and dreamed of flight in summer,
of a tree that lived
and grew red fruit.
And for what?
To become, in their last hour,
a music box
in your big palm.
Didn't you stay like them?
Do they call you away now?
If you leave the house
you will find wings, they say.
Bushels of wings.
Creatures rattling the thick air
with the instruments of their sovereign bodies.
we hear singing under the house.
The kitchen seems to be the heart of it
so we sit there
and take apart the floorboards
with our fingernails
until it is found crooning--
the box of cherry wood
held together by honey
and filled with cicadas.
Fifty years they were here.
Fifty years I knelt at their coffin
and worshipped how they
stayed.
Fifty years they were dying
and now, like swans,
they trumpet the end.
I made this for you.
I fell the tree.
I built the casket.
I gathered the insects
and set them inside.
I picked the wings from their backs
and like this I became God to them.
Because they loved me so immensely,
they did not sing
for half of a century.
They slept and dreamed of flight in summer,
of a tree that lived
and grew red fruit.
And for what?
To become, in their last hour,
a music box
in your big palm.
Didn't you stay like them?
Do they call you away now?
If you leave the house
you will find wings, they say.
Bushels of wings.
Creatures rattling the thick air
with the instruments of their sovereign bodies.
When Heaven Fay writes, it is a ritual she does while listening to classical music, drinking coffee, and wearing a dress that is covered in suns. Poetry is her vitality.
Paul Luikart is an artist and writer living in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In addition to writing and drawing, he directs a shelter for homeless families.
