Foxfire 

“What is a foxfire?” my little girl asked.

I thought of a lover I had in the past,

But, “an eerie bio-luminescence

Caused by certain mushrooms or other fungus 

Growing in decaying wood,” is what I said to her.

I got down an encyclopedia of plants

And found the F’s.

We looked it up and marveled at the photographs.

One showed the mushroom in the day

With its slightly reddish strains amidst the gray,

But the same fungus when viewed at night

Was a psychedelic sight of glowing neon green.

I thought of the first time I’d ever seen you,

How your eyes, locked on mine,

Gave a gleam, a hint of a shine on me,

And how your natural warmth had drawn me in

To a night in your arms.

A hook-line-and sinker kind of catch, 

You held me fast against your skin,

And as the night fell hard, so had I,

So deeply into a lovedream with you,

A faerie-fire, a foxfire state, 

Of loving sweetness, and mate-for-life

Kind of bio-luminescence.

And my little girl sighed

And said, some night,

When she is older,

She’d like to go out

And try to spy

This furtive wonder,

And I said wistfully to her,

“I hope you will.”

-jenn