Luna moths flutter in the captive night light
of early December, strong, determined
to mate their way to the electric crackle
(invisible as a secret trapped in the soul)
emitting from the machine in the eaves.

Their disintegration illuminates the dark
with ultraviolet pulses and heavy musk
drifting to mouthless, abandoned mates,
antennae feeling their starvation, extinction,
the end of all their brief cycle of lust.

The creatures in rockers spend the night
brushing the remnants of their death
off their cheeks, cuffs and hair—
absorbed in their dark loneliness,
avoiding conversation with each other,

The widows miles away feel the tug
of a mouth and mandible forming,
a dream of a shout and tear evolving,
the rock, rock, rocking waves telling them that
they soon will feast on these creatures clothes.

Note;
    
Luna Moths have no mouths and thus cannot eat.  They exist for only a week, being born to mainly mate or die of starvation.

There is a certain satisfaction that comes
with shrinking language and imagination
to a rectangle, fitting black-and-white
words into a prescribed length and width
given human depth through inscription.

The filled sheet of paper almost
transcends its smoothness and thinness,
its very blank expression and dullness.
It reveals exactly what it is meant to say
and the colors one wants to see in it.

Move the imprinted strokes up and
it becomes the verisimilitude of art;  
move the line down and there exists  
scientific equations in plain view;
give it power- and it becomes money,
an official stamp- and it’s the recorder of
birth/death and everything in between.

All of it can drift away if unbounded and
catch fire with the right or wrong spark.

The lavender skin river
whispered with a maiden’s call.

Bonnet curls kissed her banks
in a flush of forgiving tears
for the trawlers bruising
her mercy and calm,
each departing an oily scar
that dispersed in the flow,

for the water is never mean
this cold season
to those that whip her  
yet never scuttle in her embrace,
for she is an orphan
seeking the lost ocean’s reunion.

She wonders on rivery things,
the searching and sloshing swirl,
the geraniums, irises, lobelias
breaking off in purple sacrifice
to soothe her aching waters.

knowing that endless
Sunday baptisms have made her
sacred to those who
know only the dawn and twilight
of the sun above her
and the watery blessings
below that feed them.

The river flowers tickled her and
the laughter spread on her stream
and she knew what she meant
and what she meant to them.
She moved closely away
to the tiny hands in the grass
waving her goodbye
and the longer, bigger ones
welcoming the trawlers home.

1.

If there is wild moving water
there is a trout in it
waiting for the cast,

the whip of line in air
splashing a weigthless fly
on the mirror surface

luring the rainbow fish
to break the heavy air
for the angler’s fantasia.

                    2.

The Rogue is flowing
with trophy size cutthroats,
chars and steelheads,

yet the angler only feels
the stillness, the endless  casting,
the motionless standing in place

until time is forgotten,
his scheduled life forgotten,
what needs to be done next forgotten

only the emotion is left,
the heart of spirit ferrules,
the casting, the rod

with its wheel seats
made of rosewood,
inscribe calligraphy

in golden ink, shiny agate
guides in bamboo,
its garnet threads and

extra fine brass wire
in a five weight
ideal for trout fishing,

the anglers long boots
planted firmly in the stream,
getting lost in the ineffable moment

until the closing
orange hues of autumn
are reeled in and stowed away.

The earth is black
on both sides.
The yellow bus
taking the living away
passes pile after pile
of rubble, of signs that
were once there:
the Harley Davidson store,
The Rogue Action Center-
a nonprofit climate change group,
the community bank -
it’s vault the only thing standing.
Indistinguishable from the ash
is the mobile home park,
which once housed the migrants
that harvested the town’s fabled pears.
Only their metal survived the wildfires:
aluminum lawn chairs, a barbecue pit,
hubcaps of cars long since evacuated.
Among the stranded survivors
is the aged widower searching
impossibly for his wife’s ashes.
He had escaped and settled
here after the Paradise fires took
his previous home two years back.
Crows on charred oaks branches
watched and mock his effort.
He looked all around him
and wondered to God
if he had paid
enough grief dues.
When the bus stopped for him
he did not get on.

White and red roses
defend the mother’s coffin:
cherry stained,
her interlocked hands in prayer
draped in veil gauze,
her gold dress
the same she married in,
as the procession of her children
grieves in a black and white flow.

In a black and white flow,
each child lights a votive candle
that reflects the sanctuary lamp,
their tears and prayers—
hating themselves
for the gasping erasure inside,
the love not returned in time.

The love not returned in time
before the tears
of the blue ******
praying over her,
black hair
matching black hair,
alabaster hands
blessing burnt  
brown ones, anticipating
heaven’s restoration.

Anticipating heaven’s restoration
the congregation
steeple their hands and
chant for her dreams
to true,
her now
motherless children
to rise and stay united.

Rising and staying united
all her children
awkwardly cradle
their old gifted rosaries,
skipping Glory Be’s,
misremembering Our Fathers,
finally hiding in their tears
and the pale oval beads,

the pale ovals of their hands
buried in the vanilla scent
of candy florecitas
half mauled
in sugary communion,
their faith in confection
as strong as
believing their mother
would never die,

believing their dead mother  
would always protect them
even while the cancer within
ate her silence and resolve,
finally leaving them living
in a world of dollhouse sermons
and scented flowers with thorns,

scented flowers and thorns
and death marrying death,
matroning childhood,
life in its very pinkness,
child to mother to father

father to mother to child,
until night falls into blackness,
to black rot dusting
even lion and lamb,

lamb and lion
consecrated
to the last letter,

the last letter
of God’s tears,
the tears of now,

until now the tears
are nothing
but the chants of cries,

the song and chants of cries
born sober in the now
and the chant of tears

the tears of chants
and the children kneeling,
others kneeling,

kneeling others,
until there is
only the fall,

only the fall
of kneeling
in the now,

now in the fall
of kneeling
for love of each other

each other now in love,
or thinking they are in love
now with each other,

each other now in love,
knowing they are now in love
or soon will be.

The memory monster haunted Mavette on the 
platform, the gym, pass the graveyard,
scolding her for leaving the tiniest 
remains of food on her plate, scourged 
her for reading that ***** Jew, Levi.

The swastikas chased her in her dreams.
In her hole in the earth the dogs and 
stamping black boots would pass over her.

She lived with that history everyday,
escorting curious, mournful tourists
through the remnants of Auschwitz.

She knew all the ways of death, could 
recite the roll of who died and lived
over, over until the loop was her life.

Her sister in Detroit would receive 
a postcard from her every week 
with the name of a Jew gassed 
and a list of their left overs 
that were burnt or sold during 
that particular time of the war.

Her sister never wrote back
and sick of receiving this 
unsolicited ******* and 
emotional ***** would 
unceremoniously match 
every neatly written note.

Today a bunch of high school girls
were pleading with Mavette
to put them into the chamber 
and turn on the gas for they 
all wanted a great TikTok moment.

Mavette was tempted but
that was never allowed and 
the echoes of their laughter
followed her and ruptured 
into a migraine by shift’s end.

The next day, a squad of Israeli soldiers,
in a moment of exposed reflection 
after crying and singing the Hatikvah
whispered to each other
“That’s what we should do to the Arabs.”

She was only a little ashamed 
to share their thoughts,
these children and young men,
enraptured by the practical thinking
of those exposed to the simple, 
recreatable reality of the 
**** killing mechanism. 

The next day she did not rebuke
the teenage boy in the brown shirt
who said: “In order to survive 
we must become a little **** too.”

For once she wanted to escape
her hole in the ground and 
be the one with the dogs and guns,
be the one with all the power. 

if she could not escape death in her dreams
she could live by becoming death in them.
Mavette, the Angel of Death—  the idea 
comforted her nightmares and dreams.

And she took her gun and 
locked herself inside the chamber and 
asked those outside to turn on the gas.