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moonmoth

•

you throw yourself

against my window hungering

for the light of my room

•

tonight I am burning four candles

they are a gift from my children

thick wax drips down

coating their dusty painted wreaths

•

I sit and write

by their flames’ light

•

on the outside of the screen

floury dust clings to the mesh

those scales are dust

that nacred your wings

•

at daybreak I think I hear you fall

you must be clinging hollow and light

to the flowering shrubrose

that grows beneath my window

•

I turn the latch

stretch out my head

through the open sash

•

my sons call up to me from the garden

•

they have seen you dead

in a cat’s claws