Blue Fireflies
By Claudia Kessel
It was only a thin sliver of the dream
like the middle part
or a back alley the dream wandered through
but it’s all I can remember:
Me, running after you, as the smoky tail of dusk
curled into itself, I sprinted across the city park,
trodden and vacant like ones in D.C. with low, cold grass
surrounded by high glass buildings crowding out the sun.
I ran through swarms of blinking blue fireflies
iridescent, plump with light.
They bumped my ankles, tickled my naked calves
as I approached you hoping for – what? –
the envelope of your arms,
a homecoming of sorts.
Things get blurry.
I can’t recall what happened next:
Likely you just stood there
blank, expressionless
tall in your jeans and sneakers
pale in your glasses, dark feathered hair
beginning to recede at the temples
hunched, slouching a bit
thumbing the straps of your college backpack
neither welcoming my embrace nor shunning it
standing there on the sidewalk, noncommittal
then moving on to wherever it was
you were heading.
Bio: Claudia Kessel works as a grant writer in Williamsburg, Virginia and is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at Old Dominion University. Her poetry has been published in Richmond Magazine, in the 2024 Poetry Society of Virginia anthology, and in various literary journals including Ekstasis, Arkana, The Dewdrop, The Ekphrastic Review, The Write Launch, Literary Mama, and Lullwater Review. Read more at www.claudiakessel.com.
