Moth, Horse, Accident, Skin

A moth’s dull wings

wetted into a brass

crease. Once

someone remembered me

crossing the ravine. My bare feet stung on the sharp

cinder, rain slid the mudbank over which

orange blossoms sagged and the trill

echo of the last bird narrowed

the sky. Someone saw me

as I saw myself: a small child scrawling

my name in the dirt with a rusted nail,

with a silent tick of snow. The muzzle

of a horse rose and lowered—once,

sharply. Following this, the original shape of the mare

reared in flames. My pulse stung my throat. I lay

trapped under the Cadillac’s door as fire swept

the stubble field; smoke

like a crow’s wing, flagged

the vetch and settled

over the old date orchard. The sun

was a blinding hallucination. I rubbed my swollen

belly’s parchment of stretch marks. By noon, after weeding

I lay down in the yellow grass. The ache of labor

shines up through my shoulders, not wanting

the inside of my mouth to ripen, while

two moths gather under a street lamp’s green halo

and drown in a blossom of dusk.