A moth, rich with detail as a Dürer engraving,

            is trapped in the house, weak 

from batting windows.

            Ash gray with shocked 

mahogany eyespots,

            the wings sag from exhaustion, 

twitch once as my hands 

            close over them, and relent,

settle to any doom 

            in the warm vault of capture.

The wings brush my palms like eyelashes.

            Thrown from the dim room 

to raw noon sun,

            the moth loops and staggers

in jagged, drunken orbits,

            until it finds a shaded crevice

for shelter from the harsh mercy 

            of rescue, tilting through 

this vertigo of color, 

            this chaos of brightness,

blinded from sifter of dark 

            to a throbbing eye by that instant, 

salt-white scouring we all desire and dread,

            the shine of a day

when even the dark will burn.