Transverse Orientation
To watch moths as a pastime is known as mothing.
Nothing is known about what makes one inclined to mother
or less inclined to that sort of glow
curio. Moth-er with
— unexpectedly —
the short O of body
rather than the O Oh of that longer load
zooming in on the veining
on the cleaving husk
the processionary male
you knew you know
before their moth-hood is realized
some of the worm-states don’t even face
the slog of cocooning just dig
into the ground and stay there until it’s all over.
Cooing toddlering plod. The codling
moth is only one named species among
tens of thousands that might have been mothered,
among the what-might-as-well-be-billions yet to be described.
Corn borers. Bullworms. The Invasive Gypsy moth.
Those sorts are boxed as bothers but it’s a misnomer
that all moths pest. Many have no mouths
and do not eat at all never mind clothes. Those
that do
favour finely chopped white mulberry leaves.
No one scorns the silk-makers though
as long as they issue forth good thread
from the tiny holes in their jaws.
A trait worth buoying. It seems
a pseudoscience that such finery could yield
from their drab powder forms. It would be a crime
not to foster it. Better to spew a fother of silken filaments
which can be carted off and bathed in troughs of luke
warm water (serving to soften the gum binding
so that the wombs can be unraveled and streamlined
to a skein of raw product) better that
than to spew out their own attributes or the quirks
of their run-of-the-mill species.
Why all this mothing, the spinning
round and round? There is a theory
it has something to do with the moon
that by keeping a regular angular relationship
with a luminous celestial body
moths can fly straight as bootlaces. The light
will always be above the skyline—looming.
Planets are so obvious, a loss of bearing would easily be corrected
they speculate.
But here. How to forge away—skirt an orbit?
She circles this screen this page this energy-saving bulb
closer and closer
spiralling in on the ultrasonic incidence
! plummets now !
a reflex as all this falls past her horizon.
Is it over?
Is this the moon?
Mothers usually sleep this time of day.
