Summer Moths

by Judith Grey

One hot summer night
a horde of Leopard Moths
was suddenly flying
everywhere in the house.
We were under siege.
Exotic creatures, like tiny kings
cloaked in black and white fur,
flew from bookshelves,
to bricks, to rafters
in a frenzy of authority.
Too many to capture
and release. Too many
to turn off lights
and risk collisions
with their soft bodies.
When the night air cooled,
the onslaught slowed,
and we were surrounded
by camouflage eyes
ornamenting every surface.
In the morning
corpses, insubstantial as dust,
littered the floor, stairs, windowsills.
I swept that mystery
into sad piles and wondered
whether they had noticed us
as they blundered toward desire.