There are nights I swear I glimpse the fluttering
shadow of my mother in the moonlight, yet she
never believed in the post-mortem survival of
consciousness, the reincarnation of the soul.

There are mornings I wake to my wardrobe full
of chewed shirts and ties, irregular holes in the
silky fabric, sticky tubes in the corners of the
closet, when I know there’ve been no moths.

There are afternoons I notice light gray powder
on my fingertips, hear a dim yet frenetic buzz,
soft bumps into objects, but never catch sight
of the source. Don’t moths sleep in the day?

But there are also dusks I detect no noises, spot
no movements, and suspect she was right, yet I
still light a flameless candle, pray she finds the
brightness, knows there’s more than darkness.