Emerging from her cocoon without a mouth,
the luna moth climbs onto a stem to unfurl
and dry her wings. She’ll find a mate tonight.
There will be no kiss. There will be no taste.
There will be no speech or song. After midnight
the still, silent couple will join like drops of rain.
She’ll go her way, and he’ll go his, and there
will be no need. Nothing sharp or savory, nothing
bland or sweet. She’ll lay two hundred eggs.
Then a final rest on a barn door’s hinge, staring
at the lightbulb’s perfect yolk. And nothing
like hunger, though a hunger’s what we feel.
Dan Albergotti is the author of The Boatloads, Millennial Teeth, and Of Air and Earth. His poems have appeared in 32 Poems, The Cincinnati Review, Crazyhorse, Five Points, The Southern Review, The Best American Poetry, and The Pushcart Prize, as well as other journals and anthologies. He was the Amy Clampitt House Fellow in the fall of 2020 and is a professor of English at Coastal Carolina University.
