Cicada Season Gothic

Step outside,

the unbearable

buzzing

again

and

again

and again.

“It’s cicada season again,”

my father says to me.

“From the Delta

to Biloxi,

the rolling hills and

rotting buildings

come alive

with the chatter of

those detestable insects.”

My feet on the

blood soaked ground

of Jackson,

waves of ear-splitting sound

crashing against the feet

of Confederate sympathies

in the Capitol.

I wonder if the cicadas

sang their terrible song

in 1864-

A cacophony of violence,

set to their annual

sadistic symphony.

The cicadas sing

in the cotton fields,

in the bayous,

and in the creationist

science classrooms.

I feel the buzzing

echoing in the grinding

of my teeth

as the missus in front of the board

tells us that

the Earth is ten thousand years old.

She says the cicadas sang

to Adam and Eve.

Fumbling and awkward,

stained with Lipsmackers

and glitter-

the cicadas sing

as I kiss a girl

for the first time.

In the woods behind

the abandoned gas station,

we take our refuge

from violent eyes

as her father

sends twelve missed calls.

Sticky with humidity

and shame,

we let the humming song

cover small gasps

and whispered promises.

Hissing and popping,

my gramma

fries thinly sliced

cajun sausage.

“Good chil’run who

help with them dishes

get extra jambalaya,”

she croons in her

thick and comforting drawl.

The door creaks open,

the cry of the cicadas

falling inside

with my grandfather-

beer-stench thick around him.

A sharp slap,

and gramma is slumped over the counter.

The hissing and popping

from her sausage

and the cicadas

filling the small kitchen.

All the trouble in my life

is trailed by that

buzzing.

I know God isn’t loving or real,

‘cause if he was

he wouldn’t have made cicadas.

oGYGIA

Somewhere out there

in the cerulean expanse-

hidden in the domain

of Amphitrite,

lies an island of

sparkling white quartz sand,

dotted with iridescent-interior

pink shells.

There are no people here,

no struggles of power and politics.

No taxes,

or the greedy men

who collect them.

The island

is lush with riotously

colored blooms,

and vines that creep

over the bones of

all who have tried

to conquer her.

I wonder if

the island would accept us

as non-humans,

if she would take us in

as the spray of salt

in the maritime wind,

or the sheen

of an animal eye.

I wonder if here,

there is space for you and me,

eschewing humanity

to find a place

that fits

for us and

no one else.