Along limbs and leaves fireflies
turn the tree on the shoreline into a vast whisper
of glowing pinpricks of staccato light
blossoming into fluorescent pantomime.
Just like a Christmas tree with fairy lights,
the woman beside me utters in hushed awe.
It is only the males, I say, their bums ablaze in anticipation,
courting the night air with wistful longing
and flickering hope of a tree shuddering with copulation.
Wink, wink, nudge nudge.
A Christmas tree in rut.
Not the First Coming or even the Second but a billionth Coming
in an ecstasy of light.
Horror stemmed her further comment
and I lay back in the boat contented,
the lap and slap of water mirth on the hull,
joining my joy as the tree broke into a smile of light,
seeing all that singular, minute and obsessive fixation
transformed into a panoply of delighted light
and thrumming sensuality.