In the end the moths get everything                                 even our hearts

sitting in the kitchen 

        decked with years

        I saw my parents 

gently fading into scraps

            small holes 

I had not seen before 

were waving 

in their cheeks

            the moths themselves 

              were spilling

from the drawers 

like overflowing 

gasps

their tiny eyes all 

focused 

as they flew 

        I knew they had no

need 

to care for us

  and still, hopeless

I hoped they would.

But everything         kept trembling 

out of form

the table like a wobbling 

hunk of mountain cheese

the plates 

like woven fabric

    chairs pockmarked

peppered with spots

TV a square-cut 

drop, a falling hum

newsreaders 

fast outgrown 

   by their own mouths

until only some mouths 

remained

sometimes just half a 

                   tongue

even my hands were stitched                 with tiny gaps

        Later, I dream

my father

in the kitchen 

once again

smiling at the stove

making a soup 

from chicken bones

        like his Prussian grandma 

        taught him

sunlight hanging 

from his hair

You look well   I tell him

as if I 

 cannot see 

the clustering moths

 or how his

edges seem to be softening 

the growing hole beneath 

his chin.

That night, I wipe 

      the moths off his warm arms 

ask him

        please don’t move

        too much

Stay just 

        for a while  

and the bedroom’s half light seems to bend 

at our hands’ touch

      under wing shadows

        gently peeling off

the edges     the thin frame