The Way I Saw It

A Sweet Tea porch introduced
A dawn-dusk amber shift
from day to night:
"How ya doin?"
"Oh, I'm fine."
"What'll it be?"
"Oh, a little off the top
if you don't mind."
This place, a place
where the meaning
of the flash
from the first
firefly seen through
southern living lenses,
and deep southern senses,
is a front porch
in Tennessee
where the rarest of girls named Ava Lee
had me over for Sweet Tea
and on her porch she offered me a hair cut.
I obliged, and from the porch I
duly noted the transformation: the view,
from the porch, of golden grass
and glassy dew unfold -
The bold bright gold of
old dead grass flattened
out by the coming shade
into a nondescript
rectangular mass.

Then the first firefly blinked, and
we both stopped for a
warm sip of sweet tea.
Her finger traced my ear,
and brushed my neck.