Ashley Anthony
Like Cicadas
It has been a tumultuous night.
A smell permeates,
a smell that means the presence of a stranger
who makes things fly apart from the center,
makes us realize
the center was only made of string and tape, anyway.
I spent 90 seconds with my hand on the light switch tonight
and haven’t unpacked or repacked my suitcase.
I hear soft sounds in the next room and wonder how they were achieved:
how that weighty anger was, if just for a moment, set aside.
Strangely, in this Brooklyn brownstone
I hear something like cicadas and it feels
almost God-sent —
street and all things hushed by a soft buzzing,
blessed inhale,
the city domed, for once, by the wide starriness of country sky.
Because any imposition of nature on this
all-too-human moment is
needed, humbling, needed and humbling.
I fall asleep to this.