WHEN WE WERE MOTHS, BY Ronda Piszk Broatch

In this version, you are floating in a forest lake,
under such a moon. We are footsore, drunken,

living on vapor. What of the salt and vodka,
the deck of Hoyle? We could be flushed away,

drained into red earth until left is hardpan, harsh sun.
I liked your skin with no one else in it.

Drift a bit closer, brush your toes against the shore
of our childhood. I’ve got a cricket between my palms

its whispers burning holes in our story. Who were we
to make such birds with our hands? To shackle our drowning

within the wavy edges of a photograph? See, I am
bushwhacking the game trails, dredging the lake

until you surface, mothsore and dry — ​
where a mouthful of dust is nothing but dust.

NEXT

Ronda Piszk Broatch is a poet, photographer, and author of Lake of Fallen Constellations (MoonPath Press, 2015), Shedding Our Skins (Finishing Line Press 2008), and Some Other Eden (Finishing Line Press, 2005). rondabroatch.com