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I Return Home After You Die

Evalyn Lee

To moths. I promise Sarah
not to bring them to the funeral.
They live in the lid of Duncan’s
GoldenSource protein powder,
worming in the threads of the cap,

then in the sugar, then the pecans,
but not in the chocolate, but in
the seam at the back of the cupboard,
then in the carpet up the stairs,
then upstairs, in the closets,

in sweaters, suits, skirts, dresses,
all webbed with moth dust.
I take everything off the hanger:
spray, wash, bag it to dry clean.
The dry cleaner tells me there

are more moths than people
in Chiswick. It’s an epidemic.
All the threads in my house—
in my head—are severed by
moths, everywhere, gracious,

terrible, toe-tagged, swollen.
I am writing lists, long lists.
To camouflage myself, I put on
a list. Me, the moth bounced
in from the cold, insulates

my body with microscopic
scales, I modify them, day after
day, terrible, graceful, dust drops
off me. I shed my whole life—
years of it—reproduce and die.

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