Remembering a back like arched bone,
all marrow and luck.
A moth lands on my cathode-lit arm,
twice before I flick it.
It doesn’t shoot like a hard ant,
but crawls, all smashed,
into a crevice of the couch
to live that slight bit longer.
Remembering a mouse squeaking like a screw
twisted into tight wood.
Dying in the silence,
10 seconds after ‘snap’.
This on a night that’s brutal enough:
cracking the human touch
to leave me still and noiseless as bark;
a trunk amidst these dying things,
nothing vital but branches
tapping at a keyboard
to carve slow thoughts.