Positions and places I found various dead cicadas in summer 24
by Tessa Patti
Smushed, head and body barely attached.
Wings a few inches away from the rest of the body.
Wings, just wings.
On the ground, belly up, limbs outstretched like a six-legged Christ.
On my garage floor.
In the grass.
In between sidewalk cracks.
Red eyes right at me.
They scream in the county, cross the border into the city and all goes silent. Like magic they appear and disappear. It has something to do with the density of the ground. Maybe they just want to torture the county folks.
They’re very beautiful, my friend thinks. She thinks of getting one tattooed, I tell her to just be one for Halloween. Wear something iridescent, walk in the party, and scream.
I can’t help that any scream sounds like murder to me. Even the mating ones, romantic, that cry among thousands of other voices
Hear me. Come to me. Be with me.
They might hurt me the most, especially when you find them dead in a pile,
no more individual than their cacophonous shrieks. I wonder how many times they mate
before they fall to pieces. If it’s just one little death followed by the Big One. If the little
one makes the big one worth it. I bet no one loves harder than a cicada.
In the grass.
On the sidewalk.
Outside the credit union.
One. Green-winged in a sea of brown corpses.
Two. In the middle of mating. Wings wrapped around each other, lifeless.