neighbor's floodlight
illuminates
riven skin
of a dead
shumard oak
foxes scream
then suddenly
the woods are quiet
in rough crotch
of black walnut
a lightning bug
looking for all the world
like a hot spark
freshly struck
from the flint
of a single bright star
barely visible
through the darkening
canopy
From What I Learned at the War (West End Press, 2016). Copyright © 2016 by Jeanetta Calhoun Mish. Published with the permission of the author.