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Dick Westheimer
The Fig, the Firefly, and What We Carry
This is a time for a child’s hand
to hold mine, to not fear the flesh
that shrivels like a fig in autumn, the time
to caress the bleeding bruised skin
thin as the skin of an onion. Open
a bed to two old lovers whose
hands intertwine like recollection,
like lemon peel, whose probing
fingers open a door, their time-lined
palms waning moons that unfold
one and the other, like splitting
the fig of their tender places. They savor
the seedy, the sweet— forgetting
that one will die before
their lust does and the other will carry it
like a child carries a firefly in
his cupped hands trusting
darkness can be illuminated
by such a tiny light.