August in Devon and all is rain. A soft rain
that seems, not to fall from the sky, but to rise
from the ground and drape itself over the trees
and hedgerows like a swirl of silver taffeta.
But I am not interested in matters meteorological.
Not for me the logic of meteors, but the logic of metre.
For this is a Poetry Course and I am the Tutor.
Last night I had a visitor. (Not a female student:
‘I’m having trouble with my sestina’… ‘Please come in…’)
But a monster that kamikazied around the room
before ensnaring itself within the vellum lampshade.
Waiting until the moth, light-headed, went into free fall
I clumped it with Ted Hughes’ Birthday Letters
bringing to an end its short and insubstantial life.
Consumed with guilt? Hardly. A frisson of imagined
Buddhism? Possibly. Would Mrs Moth and the kids
be at home waiting? Unlikely. It was either me or it.
For who is to say that my visitor wasn’t a mutant killer
waiting for me to fall asleep before stuffing itself
down my throat and bringing to a suffocating end
this short and insubstantial life… Do I hear thunder?
***
A second meteor, a host-carrier bearing aliens from
the Planet of the Moths, tears a hole in the damp taffeta
at the hem of the hills surrounding Black Torrington.
A soft rain still, but high above, a vellum moon.
In his room, the Tutor pours himself a large scotch,
guiltily wipes the smear of blood from the dust-jacket
and settles down, unaware of the avenging, impending swarm.