My Father’s Birthday Is the Day Before Mine

The last train pulses across the pane and fireflies spark beside the tracks. Acne’s red wing flames my face: I can’t take back this skin. In the other room, a drugstore Timex synchronizes with the faucet’s drip. If I squint, the fireflies align their lives to map the summer’s migraine of flowers that were weeds. You say,but I think they’re just trying to survive —