cicadas 

I.
dad says each year the cicadas disappoint him.
their gossip rain stick clamoring outside our windows. 
i imagine thousands in the sky like he wants. 
dense & shifting. a bowl of sun flower seeds.
spit the shells out in the dirt. dad divides his soul 
into parts when he makes batteries. cicada-angry 
in the chests of motor cycles & sometimes cars.
how much further can we sunder ourselves before 
god thumb-presses us back into the soil?
he blueberry-picks the insects from their clouds.
back underground. wait 13 years. 

II.
i find their body husks clingy to the trunk
of the maple tree in the Aunt's front lawn.
dad removes a few, inspecting their tiny blank eyes
& legs poised like mom's knitting needles. he sets
them in little boxes for our rock collection beside
the ammonite fossils & calcite pieces. when he's
at work the next day i go up there alone & pick
up the exoskeleton left behind. i hear it's ghost
throb in my skin & i want to burrow myself. i run
my finger across the slit where his soul escaped
& i step inside. his body is stiff & militia-like.
i open my mouth & a thousand voices fall from 
the ceiling like sun flower seeds.