Moth Orchids

If you are ill or can’t sleep, you can

watch them spread their wings—the hours

it might take for a baby to be born—

the furled sepals arching, until

the petals splay like a woman stretched, flung

open, blood blooming through her veins.

And then stillness, the white fans glisten

day after day like sunlit snow

tinged with a greeny kiss.

Intricate, curved labellum like bones

of a tiny pelvis and the slender tongue reaching out

to the air as though the parts of the body

could blend: mouth fused to hips, face to sex,

the swollen pad where the bee lands.

Here they float:

eleven creamy moths, eleven white egrets

suspended in flight, eleven babies in satin bonnets,

eleven brides stiff in lace, the waxy pools

of eleven white candles, eleven planets

burning in space.