The Firefly's Risk

We stop to look up amid the familiar buzz
insensate to the frantic stridulation of courtship–
frothing life in the evening around our ankles.
The flirtatious meadow exhales, still
raising its peacock arse to the sky.
The fireflies risk the toads and frogs
for a chance to be devoured by a mate.
The musk of wild Four O’Clocks
inseminates the crepuscular breeze.
And we gaze in comfortable silence
so near I can smell you respiring.
Two hundred and fifty-four miles up and
five miles per second across the dome of the sky
the space station glows chastely above our heads
Americans and Russians peacefully aspiring
Leaving no current, making no sound, and touching nothing
but marking me permanently as lucky enough to have stood here,
sneakers in an orgy and head in the stars,
beholding the beauty we contain.

1 & 2