The Sparrow And The Moth

I.

Perhaps a small wind
drives the sparrow off
this awning, or a leaf
whirling past the window
in its own personal cyclone
that spins relentlessly,
that yaws and tears relentlessly,
that is a moth
fluttering for its life.

II.

This sparrow must not know
the story of Greedy Crow
and the cheese. Everything
passes to another's hands eventually
but— Out back on the slab
he leaps, and his feet click
like tap shoes at the Met,
and his beak fills with song
and out the moth flies like a light.

III.

Night hauls shadows across
the porch by porch light, by lamplight,
by that book light
whose small fuzz through glass
this moth rubs up against
as a lover might rub against
a lover, for there are too few
lights in this world, for the sparrow
starts his search at dawn.

Copyright © 2008 Damon McLaughlin All rights reserved
from Exchanging Lives
Backwaters Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission