By David Himmel

It’s a deafening sound.
The screams of passion belted out
from the bugs with the giant eyes
and wingspan of a Prius.

Their summer song devolves into desperate pleas
Desperate for a mate.
Any bug will do. Though the same species is preferred.
For time is running out
to leave their mark in another 17 years.

Begging for love before falling to the ground
to be eaten by a leashed dog, batted to death by a tomcat
picked apart by a curious kid
or swept away by dampening rains.
Forever silencing their once glorious summer song.
For as the sun sinks lower into the waning summer sky
so goes the death rattle of those monster bugs that fly.

But we’ll be here
year after year
to hear the next generations play the hits
as long as their parents get lucky with their frantic cry
before they die.