Me (Moth)

CALL ME (MOTH)
That’s what my parents (Jim & Marcia) named me.
My brother got a “normal” name: Zachary.
My mom’s sister (Mary) didn’t like the name her parents (William & Juliet) gave her.
She changed her name to Jacqueline.
(Jack) for short.
I’ve thought about changing my name.
Especially now with no one to really mind.
Given or replaced, names hang to your bones like forever suits.
When I die people will still say, (Moth),
she was great at dancing before she stopped.
She might have gone all the way, danced at Juilliard, been the next Misty Copeland.
Like I still say, Zachary was a pyromaniac, which is probably why,
with a name like Moth, we were the musketeers of night—the torch & the moth.
Like I still say, Jim & Marcia were really into Shakespeare,
their favorite play was A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Names outgrow you, like a garden left untended;
they don’t disappear with the science that keeps our bodies alive.
Jesus is still Jesus, alive, dead & resurrected— & if we forget, headstones remind us that names slouch on without bodies.
So even though my name is strange I have to live with it.
It has been with my nerves for far too long; my name is a thick wilderness of angelica root around me, crafted for my spirit. & mostly because that is what they (Jim & Marcia) named me.

ALMOST SUMMER (AGAIN)
Two summers ago our car broke in half like a candy bar on the freeway & we all spilled
onto the pavement as crumbled as sticky caramel-peanut filling.
I broke three ribs & my stomach tore.
I fractured a leg & was gifted a scar as crisp as the tip of a whip from jaw to eye that I trace most in summer, when the sunrays make it feel so chapped, I have to smooth Vaseline over it daily.
It was the start of summer, we (Mom, Dad, brother & me) left New York to visit Aunt Jack in Northern Virginia.
Before we broke in half we were merging.
All of our beaten bodies made it to the haunted hospital overrun with figures in white, smelling like formaldehyde & alcohol wipes.
Aunt Jack prayed & prayed & bit her nail beds ruddy— but there is only so much prayer & if god takes sacrifices, only so much blood to offer.
That day there was only enough prayer & blood for one of us to walk out.