No One Has Time For This

No One Has Time For This

Story

Gathered up

As a rising first-grader gathers fists full of fireflies glowing like the French’s mustard yellow porch light on my neighbor’s stoop two doors down to the left

Gentle clutch made to save the beating wings in a Mason jar, pierced with a Phillip’s head screwdriver

Air holes, a sign of breathy hope to hold them over ’till Wednesday

Caught on a summer Tuesday

One ordinary  South Carolina mid-summer’s night in August after the dust had not quite settled

November is too far gone while being too far off

Our collective attention shifted from Georgia peach ice cream, churned to the speed of slow, wait

Leaving no one to stop and  listen

To a cackle of words about washing fresh Bantam chicken eggs, under the tepid water, after the gathering, before the delivering

 An act of gifting

To my neighbor

The other one, who always has time

To listen

To a story gathered from salty remembering 

For the ones who have lost interest 

In politics and platform diving during the summer of our collective malcontent