The cicadas are expiring in Northern Virginia. Many of them are starving, & not a few are fluttering weakly on their backs, & a small portion still creeps forward slowly, very slowly, but most of them are already dead.
When I am with my family I am perennially fifteen, & fat. Eleven years vanish away: suddenly I'm clumsy, & quiet, & I'm sucking my drink down faster than anyone. Greedy as the cicadas drinking from the roots of trees, I want to get as much as I can before I sleep. & I won't ever transcend my adolescence.
