Just now to our Ohio night came arctic lights
and on our doorframe perched a luna moth –
“American Moon Moth” in books. She’s settled here
to say “look up, the poles have moved,
the northern curtain’s flapping green and purple
shapes upon your roof and south across the plains,
like my great furry wings now deign your door.”

Green wings display fake eyes in purple lines.
They warn all predators to blink and move along.
She waits unmoving for her mate to navigate,
somehow, by molecules or magnet waves to here,
his brilliant feathered tail confusing killer bats
along the way. She’ll live a week, I read.
And brights she brought won’t last till dawn.
The night is shimmered by these phantom spells.
I hope midsummer topsy-turvey longitudes
do not cross up these lovers. Live your dream,
moon moth, and may your husband find you here
beneath our welcoming porch lamp.

I cannot put my finger on her velvet wings,
I can’t. I learned to never probe the metaphors.