Don Gringo and the Fireflies
Cordoba, Argentina
Dusk swarms with a heavy breath of ash-
fires among the leaves. Back in the country
of my mother’s birth, I try to mimic them
as I breathe in my own glow, a cigarette
trapped between my lips. It was here
my mother once told me,
the fireflies are spirits, our dead
family members alive in the tails of insects.
I was six, holding my father’s beer can. He smoked
to the filter, tossed the bocha with the other hand,
stamped out his cherry cinder. I pointed
to the smudge of sylph, memory on his boot,
and asked him how many he’d held,
how many he’d put out in his life.
Raising a fresh cigarette to his lips,
he quieted me and kissed two fingers— too few.
by Lucian Mattison
Dusk swarms with a heavy breath of ash-
fires among the leaves. Back in the country
of my mother’s birth, I try to mimic them
as I breathe in my own glow, a cigarette
trapped between my lips. It was here
my mother once told me,
the fireflies are spirits, our dead
family members alive in the tails of insects.
I was six, holding my father’s beer can. He smoked
to the filter, tossed the bocha with the other hand,
stamped out his cherry cinder. I pointed
to the smudge of sylph, memory on his boot,
and asked him how many he’d held,
how many he’d put out in his life.
Raising a fresh cigarette to his lips,
he quieted me and kissed two fingers— too few.
by Lucian Mattison
Lucian Mattison is currently enrolled in the creative writing MFA program at Old Dominion University and he edits poetry for Green Briar Review. His poems can be found in Barely South Review, Digital Americana, Fat City Review, Literary Juice, and Whurk. He can be reached at Lucian.c.mattison@gmail.com.
