Simile

1

Orange-and-midnight the moth on the fringe tree— first it nags a bloom; sips and chews; then shakes the big flower. Then its wings slow. Grows satiate, as in sex. Then still, as the good sleep after. Each bloom a white torch more than a tree’s flower. Each is one of ten or twelve, conic, one of many made of many green-white or white petals held out, as by a hand, from the reach of the limb. A field this morning was full of white moths. More in the side yard, in the bluebottle, lifting—fog off the dew, white wings like paper over flames and floating awry or pieces of petal torn off. Weeks now my words on paper have burned. Burned and flown, like a soul on fire, with nothing to show but ash, and the ash flies too.

2

Today, in the news—so many martyrs— an “unnamed suicide bomber” took herself into the arms of flame, and five others, “by her own hand.” Whitman means the beauty of the mind is terror. Do you think I could walk pleasantly andwell-suited toward annihilation? But there is no likeness beyond her body in flames, for its moment, no matter its moment. Yet the fringe bloom burns. Yet the moth shakes and chews, as in sex. When the young maple grows covered with seeds, they are a thousand green wings, like chain upon chain of keys, each with its tiny spark trying the black lock. A tumbler turns and clicks. The world once more fills with fire, and the body, like ash, is ash.