Luna Moth

“The Buried” by Riley Childers

Oh Luna Moth, you mouthless fuck
ing machine. All you do is fly around
for a week, soliciting sperm deposits
til you drop your eggs and drop dead.
Drop dead, you drop-dead gorgeous
apparition in green. Everyone wants
to catch you in their net, watch your
wings flash under their microscope.
Everyone wants to pin you to their bed
of science-project styrofoam, pierce you
with their shiniest needle. Oh mouthless,
gutless wonder, with no digestive organs
in your slender body you can’t even shit
yourself let alone scream. Some would
say this is a blessing: You never have to
learn how to make the screams stop like
some of us. But Luna Moth, I know you
are screaming on the inside, rushing
to pack yourself full of life in the way
you can before the bug catcher comes
with his naturalist’s field guide to wild,
lovely, fragile things, with his heavy,
twitching hands. I know, Luna Moth,
I know. Oh Luna Moth, you mouth
less little light, you have the right of it.
You have the right to a dizzy week
long dance under the moon before
fleeing a world of leering fists.

about the author

Marisa Lainson (she/they) is a queer poet from Southern California. She recently earned her MFA from the University of California, Irvine, where she served as Poetry Editor of Faultline Journal of Arts & Letters. Their work has appeared in The Journal, Poet Lore, The Pinch, Frontier Poetry, Foothill Poetry Journal and elsewhere. 

about the artist

Riley E. Childers is working on her Masters in English at the University of Indianapolis. Her work has appeared in Etchings Literary and Fine Arts Magazines, Doug Ramspeck's Under Black Leaves, Robin Lee Lovelace's Savonne, Not Vonny, and Tipton Poetry Journal.