Night Light

Whilst I read Lorna Crozier's Everything Arrives At The Light in bed last night, several moths moved from the recently darkened house to flit inside my overhanging 60-watt lamp fixture. With the patience of Job putting up with a minor inconvenience, I ignored the wings brushing at my face and over the book, until the largest one crossed the line and lodged itself against my left temple. Not wanting to awake my gal -- though the windows were wide in the heat, the screens were affixed -- and not wishing to usher it back to the non-attention of a dark corner where it would only clamour for false life again, I clapped the pages of "Dressage" together after it landed on "a warm and healing stream", and squished its grey-brown pasty shell. Re-opening the book, the light pouring full on white, I shifted the rectangular solidity. The moth's remains were identical page-facing snail tracks, the fine brown powder on my right index finger easily, permanently, washed off with a spritz of tap water.