best efforts

I saw the blink in the right corner of my eye: a lightning bug where it oughtn’t to be, caught up in a web wrapped around the bottom of the deck post. I robbed the spider of its capture, placed the firefly gently on the top rail, then dashed inside for some plastic toothpicks and set about untangling it. Anchor a point and push against it, just enough to prise away the silk without causing harm. A blink. Again around another leg. Blink. Minutes of careful untangling puctuated by blinks, until finally its legs came free. It crawled to the edge of the rail and then fell into the flower bed. Blink. It’s projection to think of its blinks as plaintive, that I had done my best but lacked the capacity to free its wings; it’s projection to hope it was a female whose blinks from the ground could still draw in the swoopers.