White Moths
  By Pamela Uschuk

On diminished wind, tiny moths
white as thin dead lids
navigate sun’s final rays. What breathes between
horizon and night’s full bloom--
bell of empty, then a sonic
boom scattering the far gone stars?

   As moths become the dusk, a fighter jet
rips the underbelly of sky, screaming
over the ridge. On TV the surgical scar
grin of the President addresses the nation, staying
the course of war gone stale
as moth wings in his mouth, while
fresh from Baghdad, a slim line of flag-draped coffins
drifts down a Maryland conveyer belt
where, sun-struck, they seem to flutter,
vanishing in flame.