MOTH

MOTH

A moth,
in death, has fallen
from air-life to the floor.

I turn it over in my palm,
the tiny carcass,
and note
minute and creamy hairs
that mass beneath the thorax;
its topside exposing
brown, armouring plates;

the window light,
a round blur of white,
on spherical,
multi-faceted
eyes;

thin legs folded
in death's rigidity;

abdomen striped
with horizontal brown.

Wings are unbeating,
transparently frail,
like haze-deepened moonbeam made visible,
differentiated by a thousand scales,
veined like a leaf,
pale, golden brown.

If, some night,
from tenebrous invisibility,
it has flitted into sight
towards the consuming
fascination of a gleaming filament;
all detailed view might be missed,
all but the mystery of moving life.