Moth, and: Snow

Moth

Return, she says—so that your body and heart find their fit; we lived that way, she says. The skin of desire, I say.

Remember the conversations? At least once, sometimes three or five each day, she says. As if we used the others as stand-ins, I reply.

Pandora was wrapped in scarves, I say. I turned into two foxes at once, she says, when I found you to say good-bye, red-tailed and gray. One stayed longer in the garden before the dogs scared it away; I knew it was you, I say. Your forehead leaned on the glass wall as you watched, she says.

You didn’t tell me you were sick, I say. I was tired of your complaints, she replies; only the healthy waste their time that way. I’ve forgotten how to live truly; how did we know? You knew me, I knew you, she replies. I don’t like it here anymore: I miss my girls, the dog; sometimes I even miss my ex-husband; and all the studios, of course, the painter; so much for the box—he painted it open. He painted our thumbprints in; he left his own print out, I reply.

You left it all without him, I say. Like you, I locked myself out, she says. Remember the photographs? I ask, and all the paintings on the wall. The sink on pieces of paper towel, she says, and the trip to Charlottesville, the bookstore, the book about space. Remember the disintegrating scarf? I ask, pieces of it still appear on my socks and underwear. I knew it was your grandmother’s, that she had died, she says. You were writing the book about mourning; how ironic, I reply. The next year my brother died, she says, standing on the street in Rome. It’s the same, she says, the air without people; you started moving, she says. We still spoke daily, I reply.

When did you begin to die? I ask. The summer before the girls went away; then they didn’t want to go, she says: they were too young; I couldn’t stop it. I wish I knew, I say. It was too much of the same, she says; desire didn’t matter anymore, I couldn’t stand to hear about the ordinary arguments, the dogs, the new lover. I would have stopped, I say; I would have tried to help. There was nothing to do but leave, she says, I didn’t want to go.

I’ve seen you, she says: once I was a Luna moth outside your kitchen window, you watched me for hours; and the foxes, they were obvious, they were meant to be; then as the second dog was dying, I took her place— to see how you might have been if I told you: some days you held me and wept, some nights you slept beside me on the floor, some days you looked away. Dying wasn’t my point, she says, love was our subject: we said it aloud to each other for years; you’d never done that before.

I may forgive you, she says. I want you here, I reply. How could I not ask, I say; why didn’t I pause; I should have stopped, I never stopped, I say; you were the third, it never stopped. We’ll try again, she says; I’ve moved inside, I won’t stop speaking now. See the eye in the wood plank, she says; feel the dog under your hand; we will be porous again, open for paint, ink, exposure. Stay, I reply, in any form; your voice in my chest like the Luna moth, asleep in the daylight, awake at night.

Fill yourself up, she says, let me float as you settle your stubborn feet on the ground. I miss you, all the details of your life, I say. I was afraid, she says, but we were right when we were joking: the moth knocking against the glass—that’s my heart. Your voice is soft, I say; so are your lungs, she...