The Moth

Dark and dusty
The anima of the red admirals’ cavalry
Linen-winged and stormy
In my last beats I rue the cool face of the lady
who romances the sea.

Oh I, naive me,
I cast my wings to her, my eyes shone skyward
the yearn to be reunited.
Reeled by the rays that tether
with silver cast from ether
I set flight
to kiss the face of her my feet like bristly whiskers
Lofty in the low night
I flounder into a hall of mirrors,
Succumbed to a haze of
luminous impostors

wherein I embraced not her
but a flicker
and was set ablaze by the yearning for a love I could not keep myself from.

A cloth thud and frantic batter of flicking wings on wood
I spasm in the scorch of my velvet torso
my wings tipped with an emberic glow
She wanes from me as death darkens my dreaming.

I let go.
I am released.
Still though,
there is something so beautiful
in the loss of life
while striving for light.