When, one night, the nightmoths came,
powdered wings against her skin,
she lay down and closed her eyes,
slept and dreamed, and went with them.
Clutching tresses of her hair,
furred and squeaking like a mouse,
spread like parachutes in air,
they went any wind to north.
Nightmoths squealed behind her ears,
rubbed against her elbow joints.
She flew over valleys where
artist earth with icebergs paints.
She flew over mountains where
wolves elope with hungry ease,
where the caribou prepare
merger with the antlered trees.
Soon the nightmoths brought her north,
to the land where snows respire,
where each night the sky consumes
itself in multicolored fire.
There they settled her to wait
while her hair grew white like glass,
where the snow’s white termites bit
through her legs and diamond grass
sprouted from her cheeks and chin.
She had waited half a year
when the Nightmoth Lady came,
winging steady through the clear,
dropping powder from her membranes,
clouded in the nightmoth swarm.
Furred antennae felt the cold maid,
slender feelers closed and made her warm.