Charles Kell
Dead Moth
In the black left eye a tiny musician plays
a tiny violin, notes so subtle they’re barely heard.
The violinist has no legs; his lower half swallowed
in the black lake of the moth’s eye. This luck
brought about by a horrible time: the moth
had been outside the apartment, in front
of a neighbor’s door—I’d walk by, stare down,
days without end. Then, my wife left me and stumbling
home drunk one afternoon I thought of popping
the moth in my mouth and swallowing. Instead,
took it gently between forefinger and thumb
placed it on the edge of a bookcase. My life
has changed. In the right eye I see my reflection—
half face, half green plank—I’m figuring things out,
learning: the ash of the body is worthless; the world
is nothing. I’ve named the moth Pills & Gasoline;
I want to give myself a new name, Cellar, perhaps,
or Ellipsis. Our violinist plays Giuseppe Tartini,
a little louder now, the gangrenous limb rotting
and floating through the fog. The notes hint
of a drowning child; an accident of broken ice
and falling; we run down a hill toward the half-
frozen pond. Mother weeps, covered in a blanket
pulled from the trunk. A pond in a decaying town
where there are no jobs, fetid dirty air, water
tinged with rust. Gasoline, I’ve carefully arranged you
so we can talk this way, look into your eyes,
see the world. There’s war out there, bits of children
buried in rubble. Bombs and guns, tinnitus.
I’ll burn this wicker chair, roast a marshmallow.
Down the red wine and light a cigarette. We’re in the cellar,
blue and gray scilla in the dark, shadowed by the lighter’s
flame. Whisper Tartini’s rotten leg. Close my eyes and see
my wife’s face, the movie of our lives, all the places
we had been, holding her. A drowned boy somewhere.
Cellar door. I will either crush Pills & Gasoline between
my teeth or throw it in the fire. Do you see what I’m trying
to tell you? I’m beginning this journey toward you.
Charles Kell
Charles Kell is the author of Ishmael Mask, (Autumn House Press, 2023.) His first collection, Cage of Lit Glass, (Autumn House Press, 2019) was chosen by Kimiko Hahn for the 2018 Autumn House Press Poetry Prize.