Night Crawlers

Cool as skin after a swim,
that rock,
heavy as a secret.

We peeled it back
from the yard’s muscle.

Ted’s flashlight
showed three slugs
hugging the bottom.

Jon pried one off
and Ted petted it.

Its little twin headstalks
stood up and reached.

Under us, the grass
seemed jumpy. Over us,
the streetlamp’s halo buzzed.

Nobody said much.

Then, tender as anything,
Jon put the slug down,
the rock back.

Later we swiped fireflies
from the sticky air—
cupped them, smelled them,
stroked them, let them go.

Jon and Ted
kept to themselves
for the rest of the summer.

Me and my girlfriends
did the usual stuff.

Things were different, though.

Nothing I put on Barbie
fit right
and jump rope seemed stupid.

My mother kept accusing me
of sulking.

I wasn’t sulking!

I was living it again—
that humming, humid night

when the boys let me
come with them,
crouch with them
in the damp August grass

to look for night crawlers.