insomnia

craving stars, I crept
down the crouching hallway,
disturbing only moths
seeking their own small
allowance of light

trees sleep, lowering
their limbs by fractions
as the day subsides,
leaving only the incremental
gestures of slumber

I have had to explain often
the peculiar edicts of insomnia,
and how it does no good
to seek why in the high
corners of the night

how it is better then
to slip into ready shoes,
and out into the expectant dark
where pivot the city’s
token of stars

© Sarah Whiteley

escaping spiders

one by one the moths
find their way into the building,
lose themselves in high corners
and dingy stairwells

cupping my hands I
usher what few I can off
the fire escape, blowing them
to whatever dusty fate is theirs

but more often find stilled
wings, unmoving corpses along
the baseboards beneath
the hallway lights

I think they know there’s
no moon here, but flock
to false incandescence for scant
safety in a poor substitute

but how else
does one escape the spiders?

© Sarah Whiteley

as if moths

as if moths
could somehow
supply meaning
she gazes upon
the half-light
of ghost-wings
hitches of breath
leaving them
unstirred beyond
the disheartened dust
of pale sill
on a night
too damp
for flight

© Sarah Whiteley