At a Villa in Tuscany

The bugs are dying at night, 
I say to my cousin as we sit by 
the pool in the pitch black heat. 

She laughs and says, I’m going to 
steal that line for a poem. I say nothing 
and splash my legs in the cool water. 

We watch creature after creature 
throw themselves into the pool’s 
clear surface (do they wonder if 
they will go to another world?), 
only to thrash about in the water, 
until, eventually, they die and are 
pushed by jets towards the 
edge of the pool. 

There is one who fights for what 
feels like hours. After some time, 
though, it dies, and we decide that 
that is enough, and it’s finally time 
to return inside and sneak more of 
the tiramisu the chef left behind, 
abandoning the dead and dying things 
to their long night ahead in the pool.