It was summertime,
a night we caught fireflies and
later released them.

I was only five—
it could have been my imagination—
about the moon winking and all.

Except …
It happened again when I was thirty.

It was a slow, knowing wink
a conspiratorial wink
a once-in-an-eon wink.

I knew it was real that time.
Because at thirty,
I was a woman of the world.

So, I winked back.