It is so simple some days. Ten minutes on the blue bus stop bench
and you climb right up. But then the bus does not exist,
or doesn't have a right turn signal, or smells like fried fish.
And who wants to ride the bus when the morning moon
still shines and could still guide the moths that circle
round the hanging light over my kitchen where blackened pots hang
over layers of lead paint? I'd see that moon outline in the morning sky
with the traffic choking by and want to be the moth in the dark fields at night.
Something with a purpose. I would say the idea of the moon
if moths had ideas. But ideas keep you spinning off course
like the kitchen moths that I squash between my finger and thumb
leaving an oily stain in the ridges of my prints. And routine
is the act of chasing these moths and squashing them. It's the green
grass we chose to mow on Saturdays with the sweaty sun
and the lemonade watered down from melted ice cubes.
But it tasted so sweet the first time. And now I have no lawn at all,
just a space of pavement where the drunks wake up on Saturday mornings
as the sun climbs over the rooftops to beat out the lingering
fingerprint of moon and the streets begin to heat up to July goo
and the humid wind knocks the moths from their sleep
and bangs the pans against the wall, leaving dander of lead paint
on the floor, where the moths waddle wearily like men
with hangovers and then shake themselves and fly again into the ceiling
and bounce into the walls. The only miracle is that animals
left the ground so many times and took flight: took it.
It was an act of selfish defiance, something based on the moon.
Inside the house I imagine the moths gyring to the light I left burning
to spite them in the cave of the basement apartment.
It smacks the bulb with a prick of treble hollow and a flutter
and keeps flying. And the bus will arrive eventually. It always does
with a squeal like tired children moaning in the mornings
before school. I'll climb up the same steps I do every day and grasp 
the cold bar and my hand will spin on the slick human oils.

                                                            Mathias Svalina