Moth Translations

1. 

A Luna moth 
wore its spring dress  
long after you were gone. 
The windows, numb 
from rain, carried  
your reflection in the glass, 
transporting it pane 
to pane with the wing-beat  
of the moth. It refused  
to accept your passing, 
believing your shadow  
hugged the walls, accepted 
its blessings. 

2. 

A cinnabar moth 
trapped your voice  
between its wings 
like a flower  
pressed in the vise  
of a clenched fist.  

3. 

The common purple  
and gold moth bore priest 
duties as I bargained 
for peace. It sat on my shoulder 
as the night hushed the room 
into a confessional booth. 

4. 

A swarm of Black Witch moths 
made an eyepatch over the bedroom  
window. Every light became dim— 
not even the foxes, bright like wildfires, 
could penetrate their hold. 

5. 

A Poplar Hawk-moth, ordinary  
as a ʼ70s couch, hung around  
like a memory of you accepting dust 
and the changing of the paint. 
Your name lost to cobwebs 
and other marginalia.  

CHRISTIAN WARD

Christian Ward is a UK-based poet with recent work in Acumen, London Grip, Dream Catcher, Dodging the Rain and Canary. He was longlisted for the 2023 Aurora Prize for Writing, shortlisted for the 2023 Ironbridge Poetry Competition and 2023 Aesthetica Creative Writing Award, and won the 2023 Cathalbui Poetry Competition.