is called a whisper, all those Xerxes flexing
blue apexes on the hush of a poppy's lip until
silence ushers them into a quieter fog. A group
of extinctions is called a grief or that one April,
our Kansas houses coated in dark wings, flutters
rushing down every chimney like sinking smoke.
Farmers say a group of miller moths is an infestation,
but dusted in fallen flour we spread the dead with
tweezers and call them a lesson, an aerial parade
of our missing. Some say a group of moths is called
an eclipse, and a group of eclipses is what I decide
to call a pandemic, suns shuttered like camera lenses.
Oh all the weeping behind walls before windows open
and the singing begins. But still others say a group
of moths is called a universe, each microscopic scale
the color of an exoplanet or dwarf star gathered into
a flight. A group of universes is called a family fever
or a dredge of lexicographers might say it is called
a worry, parents rocking to nocturnes of sonorous
moths, cupping a palm over a sleeping child's mouth
to feel the flame of breath gutter but keep burning.
A Group of Moths by Traci Brimhall |Sandalwood & Vanilla Poetry Reed Diffuser
$15.00Price
Traci Brimhall is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently Love Prodigal. She is the Poet Laureate of Kansas.
