By: Gina Tron
A corset around my throat
binds my breathing.
There are moths in my lungs
eating my wool heart.
I wanted to be a butterfly
but how can I when I’m full of moths?
A pile of dead moths
has been filling my lungs
for years,
white ash
clogging that jar
lodged in my chest.
The dead ones dissipate
eventually
but their descendents keep on
fluttering
murmuring
breeding
and two moths can’t make a butterfly.
A maggot nibbling a lymph node;
he thinks he’s destined for orange and violet wings
but he’ll never even make a cocoon.
Gina Tron is the author of three books, including 'You're Fine' and 'Eggolio and Other Fables.' She has been published in publications like Green Mountains Review, Washington Post, VICE and Daily Beast. She has an MFA in Writing and Publishing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and she writes true crime for Oxygen. Check out her work at ginatron.net “I have always been obsessed with, and sometimes identify with, moths. I think of them as the night-shift butterfly. They are complex, mysterious and sometimes creepy. During the summer nights, moths swarm to my window. I was looking at them while writing this poem. Emotionally, I wrote this from a place of fear. I've already had cancer once and beat it but there's always the worry that it could come back. My greatest fear is for it to come back in my lungs. While writing, I began associating disease with the dust of moths, filling up one's lungs.”