THANATOPSIS

THANATOPSIS

1.
Only the good die young. Beauty is skin-deep.
Nothing lasts forever. Who arrogated wisdom
to make these stick? That mottled-wing moth
flops like fish fallen from clouds, and perishes
in a quick quiver on the rough-hewn porch. 

It is beautiful even in death. Gusts broke its
wings before it could alight on a lit window.
Would it had burned in the tempting blaze
of a flame, and made for a brighter lamp! 

Its brief flight might have meant darkness
would have lost to light, and walls moved
with lovers watching their shadows merge.

2.
A hardy mosquito dives kamikaze-like on
denim pants, attempts a quixotic thrust,
and gets upended with a broken sting, its
hindmost legs shaking in rigor mortis. 

It is ugly in death. It had just been hatched.
Starkly enough, it dies while mooching a drink.

—Albert B. Casuga
09-09-11

Prompt: A mottle-winged moth flops like a fish across the floor. A mosquito tries to drill through denim, her hind-most legs like levers going up. --- Dave Bonta, The Morning Porch. 09-09-11