by Melissa Eleftherion

It's #tbt! Enjoy this great one from SWWIM Every Day's archives!

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I am trying to understand you, moth 
Your brown blink of dun fur dotted white buzzing 
You, dead on my office floor 
You, taunting me on the house porch 
Who do you carry?  

The Internet tells me you bear a skull on your thorax 
But I see a smiling pig snout as if you welcomed the down and out and muddy 
Do I know you? Did we meet on the beached fishing boat in Monterosso? 
I sense you have a message transcending statistical data  

We are both honey-named short proboscis Medusas 
Larvae for the undercurrent’s meat 
Taxonomical aberrations  
Pierce the wax, damage the fruit  

The myth of my Italian heritage says I may have the malocchia  
To be stalked by a death’s head moth  
To be stalked by wings I must carry a horn 
Stout tongue of the stigma 
If the oil forms an eye, your fur is mine  

Myth says moths are dead souls  
Your body was as intact as a specimen 
As I set you in the wastebasket 
Where is the apparition you’ve been carrying? 
I want to talk to her. 

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Melissa Eleftherion is a cis queer human, a writer, a librarian, and a visual artist. She is the author of field guide to autobiography (The Operating System, 2018), & eleven chapbooks, including trauma suture (above/ground press, 2020), & sunflower spell (poems-for-all, 2022). Her work has been widely published in various journals including The Berkeley Poetry Review, Paperbag, & Entropy, and nominated for the Pushcart Prize & Best of the Net. Born & raised in Brooklyn, Melissa founded and co-curates The San Francisco State Poetry Center Chapbook Exchange with Elise Ficarra. She now lives in Northern California where she manages the Ukiah Branch Library, curates the LOBA Reading Series, and serves as the Poet Laureate of Ukiah. Recent work is available at www.apoetlibrarian.wordpress.com.

by Melissa Eleftherion

her story is my story is your story the axes we intersect, collide, ruminate, devise the branches we extend to heartache to the larynx to the mouth humans in our filth and consequence partially digested morals and transformative butt yoga we allied in flesh and rattles a kindred of sextants making sense of pecuniary disease a systemic longing for connections when criminal justice is criminal warfare and we are all under this rock heaving against it with our might intact and our eyes xanthic with exhaustion. we are in this radial of desire we dichroic points & light when we turn we turn together and that’s where we’re going

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Melissa Eleftherion is a writer, librarian, and a visual artist. She is the author of field guide to autobiography (The Operating System, 2018), & six chapbooks, including the recently released little ditch (above/ground press, 2018). Born & raised in Brooklyn, Melissa now lives in Mendocino County where she manages the Ukiah Library, teaches creative writing, & curates the LOBA Reading Series. Recent work is available at www.apoetlibrarian.wordpress.com.

by Melissa Eleftherion

I am trying to understand you, moth

Your brown blink of dun fur dotted white buzzing

You, dead on my office floor

You, taunting me on the house porch

Who do you carry?

The Internet tells me you bear a skull on your thorax

But I see a smiling pig snout as if you welcomed the down and out and muddy

Do I know you? Did we meet on the beached fishing boat in Monterosso?

I sense you have a message transcending statistical data

We are both honey-named short proboscis Medusas

Larvae for the undercurrent’s meat

Taxonomical aberrations

Pierce the wax, damage the fruit

The myth of my Italian heritage says I may have the malocchia

To be stalked by a death’s head moth

To be stalked by wings I must carry a horn

Stout tongue of the stigma

If the oil forms an eye, your fur is mine

Myth says moths are dead souls

Your body was as intact as a specimen

As I set you in the wastebasket

Where is the apparition you’ve been carrying?

I want to talk to her.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Melissa Eleftherion is a writer, librarian, and a visual artist. She grew up in Brooklyn, dropped out of high school, and went on to earn an MFA in Poetry from Mills College and an MLIS from San Jose State University. She is the author of field guide to autobiography (The Operating System, 2018) & six chapbooks: huminsect (dancing girl press, 2013), prism maps (Dusie, 2014), Pigtail Duty (dancing girl press, 2015), the leaves the leaves (poems-for-all, 2017), green glass asterisms (poems-for-all, 2017) & little ditch (above/ground press, 2018). Founder of the Poetry Center Chapbook Exchange for San Francisco State University, Melissa now lives in Mendocino County where she works as a Teen Librarian, teaches creative writing, & curates the LOBA Reading Series at Ukiah Library. Recent work is available at www.apoetlibrarian.wordpress.com.