Six

The voices around you are tall

and they like you to be quiet. You walk away from them

looking for deer and find trees that move slowly.

You find places to stay

under bushes. Under tables. You find cats.

"Cat got your tongue?" your father asks,

and they scatter. You hide

to please him.

Your mother tells you deer and foxes lived

in the field behind the house

before you were born. She looks

down the slope.

Humidity dims the trees.

You are six. If you find a fox

she will be happy. She combs your hair so hard

your eyes swim; the tight braids hurt

all morning. She says the wires above the road

carry voices, hundreds at once. They leak

into the trees, which rustle

and then, in the afternoon, buzz

like bad radios. But now your mother says "Cicadas"

and you understand. Cicadas

are the voices of things-of leaves,

of tar sticky with heat, of dust

coloring sunlight above the road, of the place

where you are small-and of your parents,

who whisper and pass looks above you.