lanternfly winter

it would be so nice to have
a disappearing time. to shrink again
to the size of a grain of salt.
i do not remember how the lanternflies winter.
maybe as eggs or maybe as thoughts
in our heads when we lay & dream of
the coming wild ugly summer. i want it to downpour.
for heat to flap its wings against my skin.
each year it is hotter. we should savor 
the cold or we should savor the sun or
we should live each year like it will be 
the last. did dinosaurs talk to each other
about retirement? did they think they
were going to get old when they all
turned into museum fodder? 
i am told everything is ending. i don't know
how i am supposed to 
get the fire going. when we split wood
we often find little pockets of wintering bugs.
sleeping ants & centipedes. they wake up
when we place the wood beside the stove.
they scramble. i admit to them,
"i am sorry there is nowhere to go."
here is where our survivals bump up
against one another. i feed some of the ants
to the fire, unsure of where else i could
take them. when we are gone will we be
like wintered lanternflies? alive only
in the deepest veins of rotten wood? in
the cracked-egg thoughts of another creature
who is just as hurried & afraid? 
yes, despite all of that i want a least a few
more holy junes. to buy a house with you
away from everything. pretend there
that we are the last humans on earth.
watch the lanternflies emerge 
from our mouths & ears 
to scream at the swelling moon.