Forget-me-nots

The next night, seven moonbeams shone on the lawn...

Forget-me-nots

In July of 1975, I jarred fireflies in my grandparents' backyard.
As I slept, their light constellated a desperate galaxy,
but the next morning only six still glowed weakly. I tilted
the pale yellow milk of insect bodies into the monkey grass.

The next night seven moonbeams shone on the lawn.
Mother, May I, and Ghosts in the Graveyard, lit
with a light so strange, the memory seems impossible:
a lucid dream or a picture from a book. But I remember

Pop-pop’s red face when I refused a mush of boiled brussels sprouts.
I remember how the television-knob slipped gun-metal-guilty
into my palm when I changed channels, and I remember
the punishments that followed.

The rest of the summer was a mason jar jammed full
of anger and shame until the night I rose in the dark
and sleep-walked onto moon-wet grass.
I woke to the cry of a fox.
Its bark, the sound of a child calling out in the night.

Moon Over Birmingham. Photo by Matt Layne

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Matt Layne writes…

There is moonlit melancholy interwoven in the fabric of Forget-Me-Nots: the desire to hold onto the ephemeral and the inability to forget the little hurts that make up our lives. And a fox. Foxes and fireflies are two of my favorite creatures to encounter.

I have spent several nights this April seeking fireflies by the creekside. I am awaiting their glow. I have only recently begun to realize how many different varieties of fireflies exist in the world. Here, we have the common eastern fireflies that glow green-yellow, blue ghost fireflies, synchronous fireflies, and a friend just told me about tree-top fireflies! Who knew? According to firefly.org, not many people. It seems very little research has been done on these magical insects.

What's glowing in your backyard? What are you holding onto? What are you letting go? Did you see the pink moon?

Be well and may your evenings glow with the light of fireflies.

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“Forget-me-nots” appears in Miracle Strip, released August 31, 2022. With music composed by Isaac Charlemagne, performed by Maddalena Ohrbach, Soprano, and Ramilya Saubanova, pianist, on Feb 14, 2020 at Griswold Hall, Peabody Institute.

Miracle Strip, a poetry collection by Matt Layne, is a unique hybrid of the written and spoken word. Each piece of the collection has an end-stop embellishment QR code which, when scanned, transforms the reader into a listener. Layne has recorded each poem, often with the accompaniment of musician and poet, Ned Mudd. The first line of the book invites the reader to “tell me your story, and I will tell you mine,” in the campfire tradition. In Miracle Strip, the reader and poet embark on an experiential journey of memories and the ghosts who haunt us.

Miracle Strip by Matt Layne is in print! Get your copy today!

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Poet, librarian, raconteur; Matt Layne has been poking hornet's nests and looking under rocks for lizards and snakes since he was knee-high to a peanut peg. His debut multimedia poetry collection, Miracle Strip, had been awarded the 2025 Alabama Author Award for Poetry and was named the 2024 Book of the Year by the Alabama State Poetry Society. Order your copy today.

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