The trees are stage set,
a Las Vegas cabaret
on this suburban strip.
Lightning bugs in their drunken throb
dip and tumble
loose as the purple rope
of night falls
open. They couldn’t care less
who lurks here gaping
at their naked hunger.
Oblivious to the shape of you
emptying out of me,
they fill it the way they do
every hollow place, the way light
always does
but for just that blink
no matter how long we want it
bright and no matter how tight
we seal the lid. It goes out
again, a strobe
pulse, a chemical
flash burning to photon
guttering to black
before we can pin it in place
on this map of shadows.
Somehow the flicker
is enough, more
than enough, each firefly’s rutting
insistence a fizz that tickles full
the belly like sky
even with all that air
between each burst of light.
Image: Wolfepaw, “Pregnant Lightning Bug” at Deviant Art
Shannon E. Williams 
not sure about “Las Vegas cabaret” but that very minor note aside this is very good thanks
https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/poetrycenter/bundles/222883
The image of a night club kept nudging at me, but the piece is already over-reliant the words “night” and “light.” Other ideas?
I’ll give it some thought but maybe just substitute burlesque for cabaret, but something about a literal stage/show is that is for us the viewer and not so much the players, maybe, and we are seeing their naked hunger but not their fleshy bodies (which you kindly spark for us, and so there is a scene setting but it’s in the excellent images/form). also there is something otherworldly ( probably why all the stumbling onto the edge of a fairy orgy in the woods images of old) to them, sorry if this isn’t helpful.
Thanks for your perspective and suggestions. It’s cool to see what you see.
i’m grateful for your hospitality, hope it seems like adding and not taking away.
Poetry is not precious. Conversation is.