I swallowed a cicada. He says he is the last of his brood, that he could not find a mate, that the nights are too cold for him now. I have room in my throat for him.

Something in me died when he sank scrabble-legged and screeching into my esophagus, but now I can sing. My chapped tongue withers in his living woodwind croon of matchsticks and pecan sap.

“Seventeen scriveners, shallow-buried sins –

“Crutch and hitch and burrow, won't you let me in?”

Greedy autumn still stifles me, but breathing is joy again. I've named the cicada Herbert.