moth to aflame

This is my pain these days:

sores all over like busy little insects

lodged just beneath my skin.

My recent brush with nature

bit me to pieces itchy and aching.

I was food, a convenient feast.

But really, I am only a shell.

A moth being carried with freedom

by a mob of ants forward right

up the leg of a chair headed for

a likely colony behind the wall,

where the queen, a god in the brink

of destruction, awaits an offering.

Then they all grow wings, organize,

and with premeditation, simultaneously

attack the lamp outside the church.

And after a few minutes, fall dead

one by one out of sheer exhaustion

or become food, wings aflutter on the jaws

of an army of lizards that live there.

This is my pain these days:

the world goes on as busy little insects

make a home just beneath my skin.