Fireflies

Luciferin and luciferase, quietly flicker
Soft gold by the lakeside,
Invisible in the effervescent glow
Of flagrant fairy lights
Which dot the branches, like a line of
Stinging ants that overindulged on starlight.

Luciferin and luciferase
Flicker quietly
Only if you look
Shall you see.

Under the flapping fabric
Of tents painted a garish geranium
The girls shift and sway like pondweed
Exhaling peach and thyme sangria
And watermelon daiquiri.

They laugh and twirl and tattle
With a free-flowing frou-frou flourish
About Adam's Adam's apple;
About Becky's moss green tresses,
Olly's old-school girlfriend
And their balding balloon bosses.

Others on the dance floor
Shake and wiggle with their crushes
Who guffaw and mumble
Crude compliments and sweet nothings
In beer-brewed breath as
Ears and cheeks turn red with blushes.

Luciferin and luciferase
Flicker quietly
Only if you look
Shall you see.

Their laughs and twirls and smiles and blushes
Are just loud sounds of drums
Hollow with gossip
And their compliments and I-love-you's
Just a means
To fulfil summer fantasies.

Luciferin and luciferase
Flicker quietly
Only when I looked
Did I hear and see.

These vapid beings, which look like faeries
I used to want as friends and please.
I used to want they talk with me;
Now they just put me in unease.

I feel sick and disenchanted
No reason to linger and stay,
So, I sit in a boat and I row away.

I row, I row away
From this set of costumed dramatics,
These lights that make me hazy
And the their overspill of words and voices
That give me a heartache, and a headache,
Like high-pitched cymbal beats.

I row, I row, away
From the edge
Where the water has more
Discarded shoes, floating puke
And pink skinny-dipping panties
Then beady-eyed frogs
That live in duckweed.

And I row, I row, away
To the other edge
Where the effervescent glow
Of flagrant fairy lights
Does not dim the soft gold fireflies,
Where my thoughts are true friends
With the silence of the night
And the rippling blue moonshine
Is my spotlight.

-Anna @A_Poetic_Kill

Luciferin: the chemical in a firefly’s body, which acts as fuel for the light.

Luciferase: An enzyme in a firefly, which makes the reaction happen.