“Moth Music”, “Brown-feathered Girl”

nellie boyd-owens

Moth Music

I blur my body into a rhythm

against the glass. It is

cold spattering rain,

the dog’s hind leg hitting the floor

as she scratches behind her ear,

a bird breaking seed.

For cracking open the secret to heat,

closing my mouth around morning,

I become this shudder, a lonely

tapping against the outskirts of dark.

And forget my antennae,

curling tongue, and the white,

pink-eyed flowers, for whom

I am promised tonight.

Brown-feathered Girl

Do you know who you are

perched atop the guard rail?

Have you seen Indian Paintbrush,

Goldenrod, grow out of gravel

along the interstate, a metal can

glint and whirl, wind-kicked

between wheels?

I’ve watched an old man

twice a day leave bowls of

food for starving strays in the

parking lot behind my building.

He shoos them as he stoops,

on the asphalt edge, squints

into the overgrowth.

Aren’t you just like him,

a tired heart fixed on feeding

a littler life, smelly piles of

survival warming in the sun.

Not everyone can call a cat from

the thickets of her fear, take root

drinking the road’s run-off.

I know who you are,

rose-breasted girl,

waiting to clean the bones

of an animal runover in the road,

pluck the suffering from our mistakes,

crimson on the interstate.