As we pull onto the coast highway,
she comes. Alone. Alights on glass,
robust in her dull flesh—plain as a Quaker.
What is velocity to the raw humping muscle
of abdomen, thorax? Or the eight gilded legs
that flatten against all odds to a pane of glass?
How we cling to what repels us!
Moth speak is a gibberish into wind,
her single bulging eye an alert periscope
watching me astonish at her herculean strength.
I want to be as earnest, fight for my life.
But I am a lowly creature by comparison
fraught with bouts of uncertainty—
the anti-hero to moth’s brandishing
courage. My husband pulls off at an exit. Offers
cupped palms, the moth climbing onto the soft
pads of flesh as if entering a chariot. She
is transported to a clump of scotch broom
where she takes flight among yolk-yellow
blossoms. Only then does the symphony
of white and black arrive, officers singing
commands to freeze, raise hands over head.
I try to explain about the bravery of a brown
moth, how it earned its freedom,
but am ordered to remain inside the car,
where I can only guilt-anguish as my brown
husband is made into a still life: hands splayed
in white air, legs spread, head bowed
in supplication.
