Yemassee

by Therin Johns

A LOVE POEM

Then Jason would fall asleep and he would never catch the flash

across shadow-stripes of blinds on the wall and I would always picture

a bat flapping in front of an outdoor light, snapping at insects,

there, I would waste time wondering what it was, like John Glenn who

reported seeing small glowing objects outside his Mercury capsule

during Friendship 7, he called them space critters, orbital fireflies,

their illuminated bodies outside his window. I’d lay there in bed,

Jason would be sleeping and I would wait and imagine if he’d caught

one, cupped a celestial lightning bug in his Midwestern hands,

the spacecraft would be pulsing with light, a large mason jar blinking

its 3-orbit path around the earth at night when I would be trying

to fall asleep since Jason already was and, there, his 14yr old hound

snoring on the floor. I’d keep my eyes fixed on the lined shadows,

waiting to catch the flicker of light. The first time I caught a firefly I was

22, I stood with my family at Cemetery Ridge in Gettysburg and, being

from California, we’d come to stand near the field simply to watch

fireflies as the sun was setting, here, we were surrounded by statues

and cannons and I silent-stepped through grass holding my arm out as

a landing place. John Glenn’s arm outside the capsule window, reaching

for a small warm body. The way I was held so tight as he slept beside me,

the dark slatted shadows of blinds, silhouettes of soldier statues carving

figures out of the sky as this field in front of me breathed with tiny lights,

with small glowing critters, a preview of what I’d soon try to capture.

–

Therin Johns grew up in Northern California and recently graduated from Eastern Washington University’s MFA program. Johns’ work has appeared in Eclipse, inter|rupture, and is forthcoming in 5X5 and Calyx Journal.