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.
Red is not only red it
is the color of scent it
is the color of the French
spoken in my childhood
“J’aime le vin rouge, merci,”
the red wine I drink with my mother
never enough to fill the red pang
Michelle Morgan was born and raised in the state of Maine, though over the past ten years she has lived in various parts of the United States. She currently lives in Auburn, Maine.