The Moth Disturbs the Night

It is late. The owls sleep. Moths lie stretched

Against the screen, their eyes

Afire from the inside light that glows

Duller as the daylight

Advances, from shrinking violet

To a cornflower blue,

And overthrows the violent night

With quiet heat. The wind

Stirs up the trees. From exhaustion my eyes burn,

A long absence of sleep

Penetrating their white with a wild

Red that tears, into which

Even emotions are soluble,

Cannot dilute. The sea

May speak to me. I have learned its rare language

Tonight. If only pain

Passed as quickly as winter's last storm

Gives way to spring's demands,

Or could be rendered chemically

Whole, as blue blood nearing

The patient lungs, or released to the open

Air from an opened vein,

Turns red. From a dark wall, a moth has

Fallen to the table.

Its head, brown feathers, its banded wings

Smeared and diminutive

Wedges of slate, it seems recently mined from

Wet earth; it resembles

The black clay in the fields after rain.

With a clap of my hand

I could kill it. The luminescence

Of its muddied wings stays

Me. Such random unnatural artfulness,

Retained for protection

From predators or a convincing

Identification

In courtship, is as fragile as the

Feathers of blood in my

Eyes, or the wings of cloud on the horizon.

Qualities unmastered

By it keep it alive, as breath, or

Heartbeat, or pain do me.

It is not from the unknown that I

Salvage a comfort which

Allows me to survive the night. But I may

Not know myself. The night

Weakens again. The moth lies still on

The table. I may sleep.