The Day of the Moths

The Day of the Moths

There are moths in my throat.

Fluttering their tiny wings,

Tickling my trachea.

Their wriggling legs fill my mouth

I try, I really do. Try to tell

Them I might vomit their lovely bodies

Into the sink.

A phoenix dances on my skin.

Fiery, like a tropical breeze

Simmering through my muscles.

You could cut me open,

Scramble eggs on my liver.

A true Full English Breakfast.

My heart gasps as I climb the stairs

to check on Mum. If I had the breath,

I’d laugh. How funny – eighteen and

Wheezing while Mum sits at her desk.

She is a blur. Dad, a thousand miles away,

His head in a bottle, lips nip-tucked by a whisky.

Weeds twist through my lungs, knotting at the spine

Fields rising, my bronchi become blue daisies.

Mayenne – the farm near Brittany,

Where Mum cooked organic prawns over granite

Blindly smiling at me with her black eyes, her split lip

As Dad drove the truck into a wall.

I deflate into a chair, try to read

The words sizzle.

A hot summer’s day in May.

If only I could stand, go out into the

Garden without my brain hovering

And falling into a cadre

Of Forget-Me-Nots.

I forget myself between breaths.