Moths

Soft, almost unseeing sentinels,
they wait without purpose on walls,
in cupboards, ready to be disembodied,
like candle flames, by a finger-pinch.
As cupped hands open to outer air,
they fidget, cling—do they know
how to be saved? Some prefer
to grow brittle on curtains, silk fringes.
Yet, multiplying as if by thought,
they have their future strategies:
pupae wreathed inside lids, buff wrigglers
chiselling rice to webbed clumps.
Most are radiantly nondescript,
somewhere between a sheen
and a colour; others, bark paintings:
a geometric opulence.
Tonight, one climbs the shadow
of the lamp, flirts with
the twisted gold nerve that draws
dull mysteries to fulfilment.