The Day the Cicadas Died

They sat on a park bench,
She had cried,
Watching how the cicadas died.

Some still struggled,
One jumped on his shoe,
Others just twitched,
Their death rattle gone,
That’s all they had,
They had no real song.

They sat on a park bench
In a soft, soft rain
That paused and then
Would start over again.

Covering with umbrellas
Now and then
Or just letting the rain settle
On their shirts and their skin.

Quietly damp and quietly grim
As the biggish dark bugs
With the beady red eyes
Struggled with death
After sex with their wives.

They struggled too, but with parting,
Since together seemed so right
As they huddled at times
In the fading gray light,
Clinging so close
With the hope that their grips
Would seal back together
Their raw tender rift.

One cicada still circled
With life in his wings
After seventeen years
And it was still Spring.

Time to seek a new mate
And then more ‘till he dropped
Finding that death
Was his lonely last stop.

They sat on a park bench,
She had cried,
Watching how the cicadas died.