When the man who makes moths

asked me what I thought of independence,

I told him it had already been cleared away,

a spill on aisle 90 of the syphilitic

warehouse on I-25.

There is a question in my purse

and an answer hiding in the

milk I won’t drink.

I bound my breasts and thanked

God for tension and pressure.

For his newest moths,

he asks me to raise orange lights

from the depths of my instincts.

But I have poured my instincts

like wishing wet water

into the mouth of a butterfly,

who even in the dark seeks

flowers on someone else’s estate.