Five Moths
Moons on the upper visual field. I replay many springs for their ripening heat. Five limb in me: Ornate, Greased, Codling, Luna, Death’s-head. Two supernatural, three balance need. I feed on fat apples, pears: Tunnel toward center, a heaven in the core. Instinct attempts to correct with a turn toward light. My dress a brief darkness. Flits there. Another set of wings to tear. Spiral me in the silk of my tongue. Farm what is economical in me: Blood for blood, heart for snare. Scent, sweet air: My cedar, hung juniper, lavender cross: What holds the body keeps the body blesses the body’s lack. Is that not a blessing? What blooms in me: Trouble. Trouble. Trouble. So I consume. So I feed what festers. When navigating artificial light, the angle changes noticeably. Angle strict, beloved: My head a mess of moon.
Credit
Copyright © 2019 by Carly Joy Miller. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on March 6, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.
About this Poem
“I’ve embraced that I’m working toward a poetics of desire, and desire bears obsession. When an animal comes into my sight, I obsess: What is it about this particular beast, and how can I make it mine? There is a belief that we'll meet five soulmates in our lifetime. I (figuratively, of course) placed five moths in my body to discover how their instincts play into mine.”
—Carly Joy Miller
Date Published
03/06/2019