By Jana Richardson

Ever since I hit puberty

the moths visit me at the threshold

of every summer. They slip

through the drapes and the netting, their desperation

pea-brained and burning, dizzy with light

-lust. My house

spider flees my bare feet

every night when I brush

my teeth, even after

I named her. March

is green with rain and teeming

with butterflies and we have

three months left. I’ll laugh

for real with strangers and fall asleep

worn soft. In January

you told me the insects

lose their flight forever once

they land and the sidewalks shivered

with petals of fallen wings.

I’m going to stay here

in these hours curled

around you.

On my own continent I’ll miss

you at night

and when I’m swimming.

By the time I’m gone

the moths will freeze.

The elephants were breathtaking, but these are the root-

limbed creatures that fabric

webs in my closet and go belly-up

on my windowsill for all their hearth

chasing. Although their deaths are dumb,

there is some comfort

in forfeiture and I’m not without

empathy. Like me, killed

by some ancient cartographical fault-wiring.

Like you, they’re in the wrong place.

Jana Richardson has her MSW and two BA’s from the University of Utah. Her work has previously been published in Eunoia Review, In Parentheses, and Gyroscope Review. She is traveling abroad after spending a year living and working in Namibia.