pinned moth
put a luna moth in my breast pocket like a pacemaker
dying like all things feminine
must be done with grace with hearts aflutter
with each vein so delicate it must collapse
it melts into something silky touch starved
hand spun and gaunt like the time bomb
and like the caterpillars. in your chest
we were also bred for slaughter
so dress yourself in the pearly moonlight
make yourself a nocturne listen
swallow circadian rhythms until you are more dead than alive
you are a perfect vessel you are a corpse
of their uninhabitable design that thing they call a marvel
make me marvelous
beauty is a thing untouched
freed moth
i am disturbed distressed agitated unsettled
which is to say alive and not upset
our language, too, is confused by a woman in motion
someone for whom wanting is not wasting
for whom beauty is not in the stillness the but soaring
i am making my body a home
becoming a thing of pockmarks and paint smears
smile lines and stretch marks
dog ears and dimples cellulite and wrinkles
moments recorded in each depression of skin
which is to say my body is well- loved, not woeful
i am marked and not marred by the waking
take the luna moth out of my breast pocket
this is not a question of dying living like all things
feminine must be done with heart
thrumming pulsating electric ecstatic
which is to say alive which is to say divine
which is to say woman has made herself
marvelous
