cicada year

by Savi Hanning-Brown

we planned to drive down to Illinois to see them.
you said we’d need eye protection, windshield wash and a whistle
i didn’t believe it was that deep, until i read that there are
trillions, at once. all fucking
and i wanted to go even more

a bug facial
it sounded novel, and i wanted to take the long way through
New Mexico to finally shut up the small voice
that had been telling me to go
ever since i saw that calendar photo         with the hills
and the moon. how everything was 
one colour bleeding, how it looked 
so painfully quiet and

i think i’ll still go
i mean despite this         i can’t turn down a once-in-a-lifetime collision
between instinct and math, the swell of molecular time-keeping,
that ravenous hum.
you told me when it’s over they all die at once
the cicadas         having spent over a decade underground
waiting 
to find out what love is.
i tell you we know better than anyone
that hidden and aging hunger. 

Savi Hanning-Brown was raised in the rural mountains of Sinixt territory. She studied creative writing at Selkirk College, and later received a B.A. in Anthropology and Environmental Studies on the west coast. Savi has been making things with her hands for as long as she can remember. To her, the process of poetry resembles sifting matter, or unearthing things. She is grateful to now reside on Lekwungen territory, where she works with plants and walks often.