in the night i write

last night was restless

as if that night has passed.

the belt-buckle where moonlight

bounces is the abode of the firefly's

trending cousin, bullet-silver

muzzle-fire-fly, that nests in nozzles of guns

like the ones in the news

or in my uncle's dreams

whose incalculable desperation

took him six hours away to mali

doing a familiar job in a foreign land

losing data and tears

when he video-calls his three-year-old

son who refuses to wake up without

his dad, not even knowing that

it is night where his father is.

~ ajay

11/7/2022