Fireflies They’re like Christmas lights, twinkling points in the hedge and in the grass until you catch the jink and swerve of them, the small dyings and fadings of creatures invisible by day, unless an entomologist with ground-fixed eyes, hunkered, finds a plain, dull carapace and says the Latin name. Now, in the gloaming they flash on-off, on-off, like lighthouses on airy capes, transient brightnesses with darkness in between, each a tale in our own mortal book – lives like sparks of flame, photons that take wing when the sun sets and signal to their fellow travellers across the universe. (pub. Amethyst, 2023)