When I Die

It occurs to me that when I die someone will go through my possessions and I will not be there to explain them. Those poems I wrote half-asleep and day-dreamy. The child-like and unformed musings that tip-toe sideways down the notebook where my poem sleeps. Those stories that I wrote that stop mid-way through a word because at that moment in time and space I could not fathom an ending and the idea made my mind shut tight like a trap. I won't be there to explain my state of mind or to cover the thing with my hands and say 'Nope, that one you can't even look at'. It is a frightening thought. But I am alive now, and furthermore have no plans for dying anytime soon. I have too much to accomplish. So this one I get to explain.
Moths hatched hither-thither over the dry state I live in and often followed the light into my bedroom to flutter frantic across the ceiling. But I wandered in one day and one was clinging to the wall, close to a brownish painting that matched it closely. It remained there until I fell asleep and the next morning I wrote this, day-dreaming of the moth.


I Spent The Night with a Moth


I found him when I stumbled in,
drunk on the navy breast 
of the star-spangled sky.


There he was,
brushing flutter-by lashes
against my cheeks
wishing me silent hellos
scattering roughage kisses
up and down my lips


A lover in yellow and brown,
the color of a spent sunset,
He waxes and wanes,
steady as the moon.


Silent, he tells me of his journey
of the road not taken 
and the static forest trees
that took his colors
in their boughs


Silent, he tells me of his flight
A silent strider over night
over eyelash rocks and snakeskin streams


Silent, he told me how he found the sun. 
How he found the sun here
in all my darknesses
and it brought him to life 
shuttering-fluttering life
frantic as a nightingales heartbeat



He begs to come closer, 
he deigns to back away
He grows vain and inspects 
his cheek in the mirror

My lover, graceful 
in his yellow and brown, 
settles above me, 
when the coyotes yawn 
and the sun dims,
there he sleeps
a dark spot on the wall,
comforting and quiet, 
he sings me to sleep.

And into dusty sleep I fall, 
my lover a moth,
my sun a light bulb,
my journey a ripple of bedclothes

I sleep with a moth, 
innocuous butterfly,
beautiful as a calla-lily.