Ode to the Common Clothes Moth
By
Tyree Daye
In these days of less and less sun your love points and I follow
like the blind moths you beg me not to kill
half-asleep and the sun lesser than a minute before
I’ll let you go into the night and you say and I follow your love
of winged things to the back door
watch you empty your hands into the sky
In the morning you will wake before me
and walk out into the yard
the sun acts like a father as if it never left
moths sing of you from wherever
moths go to sing
like the blind moths you beg me not to kill
half-asleep and the sun lesser than a minute before
I’ll let you go into the night and you say and I follow your love
of winged things to the back door
watch you empty your hands into the sky
In the morning you will wake before me
and walk out into the yard
the sun acts like a father as if it never left
moths sing of you from wherever
moths go to sing
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Disclaimer
We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2016 by Tyree Daye, “Ode to The Common Clothes Moth” from Cardinal, (Copper Canyon Press 2016). Poem reprinted by permission of Permissions Company, LLC and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.