Matthew Thorburn: Cicada

.

Where do the bees go in winter,

their hives shuttered in ice?

When spring rains tear down

the spider’s web, she strings up

another. It seems the same

cicadas sing in the willow leaves

each year. In spring they rise

from the dirt. When Lao Wen

died, great-grandmother placed

a jade cicada on his tongue.

You are my salt, she said

though she was already alone—

angry and alone beside

dark Lake Tai. East wind

blows, swallows come home.

Now he will stay at Lake Tai

forever. Blackened by fire

the cicada slips into her pocket:

still warm, starting to sing

—

.

Matthew Thorburn’s manuscript A Green River in Spring won the 2014 Coal Hill Review Chapbook Award.