A Moth

A moth lay down on my hat to die.
On the bright blue tartan check
His wings crumpled and dry like a dusty mountain range, a hollow shell.
An exoskeleton.

He was so big, so heavy he had not the strength to fly anymore.
He left his life blood a yellowish oil on my kitchen table
She is seducing him in the next room
“Fascinating.” She says over and over.

So he left his soul on my table,
leaked his core and quietly crumbled away.
Or maybe he pissed all over my table, climbed onto
The hat and died.

It’s a lot of piss though and thick oily with a yellow residue
I don’t know if I should wipe it off.
If it’s his soul I should keep it.
Draw it up gingerly in a dainty pipette and keep it

In a small labelled vial.
Keep it until I am ninety and then allow a
Tiny drop on my tongue and see if I get any younger
Or dustier or wake a giant powdery moth

Haul myself out the ground-floor window of the nursing home
Look back with black eyes at slumped body of the nurse,
Who brought in my tea, screamed and fainted,
Waggle my antennae in the cold morning sun

And take off. Until I’m shortly shot down by the National Guard
As they read my oversized air presence as a terrorist threat. At 10.38 am
Whilst I’ve flown across England from coast to coast
And maybe I’m galumphing and flitting over Wolverhampton.

They’ll obviously think that “Giant Moth eats pensioner
In nursing home attack” because when they cut me up they’ll
Find bits of me in me. But they’ll put me in the Natural History
Museum and I might even be the main attraction for a short

While – a phenomenon that children come and see.
There might be a cheap Hollywood film with follow-ups two and three
Which involve different giant bugs. I might be big in Japan.
She leaves in a week – do I tell her I know that she broke my alarm clock?