|
White Moth, poem by Michelle Morgan
She sits still and breathes like
the white moth settled on the
thigh of her jeans, its wings
unfolding and folding, unfolding
and folding, slowly, the smell of
cloves and vanilla listing on the
breeze. She read somewhere that
moths hold the souls of the dead
inside them, that the ram of their
small bodies against the light is
the soul searching for heaven.
The moth is why she comes to
this place of memory, where her
heart tears itself out of the cavern
of her body and jumps the railing
to anything below, anything at all
except for this. She cannot go but
in her head, it is dangerous, the
thieves will creep up on her in the
dark, crush her powdered wings,
place her high in the trees with
the black caterpillars whose
gnawing haunts the leaves.
She hears the dangling spoons
tingle at the edges of the caravans
passing unseen in the night,
small brown babies wrapped in
red blankets beneath seats, three-
legged dogs, the things she wants
to forget or has left for others to
scavenge. She has no use for things.
What she prefers is the scent they
leave on the pads of her fingertips,
lemon rind, musk. When the heat
escapes the surface of the plain the
moth takes off, darts blindly through
the air, always towards the light,
always to find that it is extinguished.
She runs after the moth, falls on the
ground, the tough skin on her knees
peeling back like an accordion, her
palms burning. She lies still, her
skin turns to dust as the ghost’s kiss
whispers and grazes on her cheek,
the air humming, all around her a
fog of white moths swarming.
|
|
Bookmark/Search this post with:  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | 
|