6/23/07 draft

There were scores of fireflies in the air, and one against my windowscreen
glowed greenly, and there were also dozens of fireflies on the hillside,
and inside, one was lit but dying on the carpet, but outside, the fireflies were spinning
like searchlights or beacons or the silent discharge of flak batteries under the clouds,
the constellations out of sight, and some were spiralling into the winter rye,
while the red slugs fastened themselves to the sides of the leaves of the string-bean,
disease-resistant so the package claimed, and chewed the leaves into skeletal frames
like uncompleted aircraft or rusted out spades, but the fireflies were neither
landing on the vegetables nor on the flowers, the shriveled purple irises
or sweet-pea sending their green coils into the air.