early fireflies drift easy
through air spiced by bloomed coriander
slow-falling constellations
whose coded sequences
of seduction dazzle me, too

and like those males
following that irresistible female flicker
either to love or its hungry impostor
I want to follow that light
to the source

and only then find out
if following instinct

was a mistake,
but an inevitable one
inscribed in the DNA
of either lovers,
or predator and prey.

***From an article in the Cornell Chronicle, “Firefly Fatal Attraction”

The characteristic flashes that summon male fireflies of the genus Photinus could come from female Photinus fireflies. But just as likely, Cornell chemical ecologists have discovered, the signaling females are of a different genus, Photuris, and they’re not especially interested in courtship.

Rather, the femmes fatales fireflies are luring males close enough to eat them. The males contain defensive chemicals that females need to repel predators, such as spiders. Mimicry and murder provide a lifesaving meal, the Cornell researchers report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Sept. 2, 1997, Vol. 94, pp. 9723-9728).