After Miss Millay
And must you die as well, belovèd moth,
Beneath the wheel, upon a shield of glass,
Or buried deep in naphtha fumes, and pass
Eternity in folded woolen cloth?
No, moth, for when your desiccated wings
Are pinned and still, where beauty was, the trace
Will linger--nor can any hand erase
The dusty sign of where you fluttered--things
Have gone too far for that. You've been around
And 'round the streetlamps, left a film of scales
To mark your flight. And were you stamped so flat
As postcards lost and trampled in the ground,
Still each lamp would wear a filter of that
Dust, belovèd, 'til the last light fails.
--presented by the author to dustfromamoth, as
a jeweler gives a setting to a stone, and particularly
for meritorious noding.