Catch Me

He buried his childhood in the backyard on the Fourth of July.  He lit sparklers like prayer candles.  Two hundred miles away, in Chicago, I practiced flirting with a member of an anarchy collective while we drank beer on a couch in an alley.  That night, I wished on falling fireworks because in the city I couldn’t see any stars.

That summer someone told me that fireflies can’t live in the city—the lights extinguish theirs.  I had grown up two hundred miles away from a place where there are no stars or fireflies.  Wishes were all I had.  I used to run through the backyard, beneath the stars, catching fireflies in my hands.  Fireflies are like stars you can catch and keep in a jar beside your bed for the night.  Short-lived wishes.   

I traded in my childhood for a plane ticket and one checked bag.  Now, in New York, I wonder how to wish for anything at all when I can’t see the stars.  Maybe I’m a firefly.