Caught

By Jane Poirier Hart

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Moths batter the screen door, their 
fluttering counterpoint to my medley 
of kitchen plops & plinks. I think 
of the TV commercial I keep seeing
where a grade-school band blows a sloppy 
version of Also Sprach Zarathustra and a kid
on one end of the semi-circle swings his feet, 
offbeat, to the wobbly strains of Strauss. 

Both Strauss and Nietzsche were responding 
to the looming European crisis of their time: 
the rise of science over the reign of religion.

I distrust religion, am weak in the sciences—

When I turn to set the dinner table, I see a moth 
caught in amber of softened butter, body 
stilled. Wings imprinting Land O’Lakes
leave an indigo image as detailed, as a da Vinci,
as unlikely as god painted on a peeling ceiling.

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Jane Poirier Hart holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and a BMus in Composition from Berklee College of Music. Her awards include a Residency at The Frost Place, a Fellowship at the Writers’ Room of Boston, and nominations to The Best of the Net. Her work has appeared in print and online journals, including Los Angeles Review, The Southern Poetry Review, The Worcester Review, The Ocean State Review, and Lily Poetry Review.

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