Those flowers, straining at their branchlets in the wind
that bent the slender trunk of our young crabapple
Reminded me of dying moths that flutter, pinned
alive, displayed as though they could be beautiful

Preserved and still -- not yet; but in their agony
if only they'd the leverage, they would tear through
their small dark bodies, they would fall breathlessly,
they would stray softly to the ground as petals do.

I watched them, and I thought how it would be to burst
ahead, and leave my moth-dust on your fingertips.
I thought I was alone, and so inclined perverse --
I thought of flight, and mapped the rivers of my wrists.

And you stood strained and strangely silent, watching me
until the moths turned back to flowers on the tree.