Lay a line of moths and mosquitoes
who burned and broke and fell
and mark a path, like the floodlights
along the aisle of an airliner, plunging
toward the dark surface of the Earth
spotted with city lights, iridescent
sugar sprinkled between the mountains.
Maybe, I think, a right hook,
would be better than a full circle.
One eye swollen, the other sees clearly,
the moth fluttering, only half alive,
until I, dead drunk, poured a pool
of blood from a cut lip atop it.
The sign flickers, and I don’t know
if the light is bursting, breaking
its bonds, electrons moving
to new orbits, or if light fades
does it drop one valence at a time?
Or all at once, from the twelfth
vale to the first, like a man
whose only memories are tail lights
flickering red, like the bar sign
a warning that those who leave
will never come back, like the bar sign
a warning, that those those who enter
will never leave.
When the axle breaks, we all fall
off the wagon.