The Giant Moth

Honor the ocean of love.

       —George De Benneville

I do. But daylight brings fresh jellyfish of suffering,
their pockets stinging Aphrodite's tender flesh.
Blather of a body's march, its geriatric gutter ball,
echoes of the darkness firm rattling my shallow walls.
Caught in chancre's raspy throat,
I forget these slipping chances
sliding down your caverned cheek.
Too soon the breath of tenderness
will be a searing winter wind.
Our tombs will be a beach to stroll;
stars will blister azure sky.
For one of us, the strike will be a braided snake—
an alligator rising from green velvet moss.
Should it be my turn to grieve,
I'll stare in eyes of mussel coves,
their slimy pockets weeping at our stolen suns,
wonder if I ate the meat,
handed you the gutted shell.

If you go first, the moon will weigh too much to lift—
its avid rock like bitter Skoal, unsightly,
cruel, a wasted graft on withered shin,
a gruesome bulge in destiny.
Rumination's ruination, artless clay on empty shoes.
Cashmere of amour in holes, eaten by the giant moth.
I'll drown a memory's nightingale
in sonnets of the lost and doomed.
Dust buckles of our belted joy
for traces of your fingerprints.
Your slacks will be two fallen flags
never to be raised again.
For now, your tongue, its slippery Stradivarius,
belongs in guarded orchestras.
I fold your clothes, wear your dress shirt
to the store; wrinkles fit like second skins.
If you go first, our closet will be Parthenons.
A place where royals slept on petals of a rose,
woke to find a bed of thorns
surrounded by a moat of ash.

— Janet I. Buck