Hieroglyph Moth.

HIEROGLYPH MOTH

   When the white ermine wings
   opened at night

   like a book of frost
   smoking in the dark,

   I understood the colours of vowels
   painted on moth fur--

   the black, red, saffron signs
   of a new language.

   Antennae grew from my forehead,
   my tongue was restless in its chrysalis.

   I felt lift-off
   as if my bones had melted.
   I stepped out into the snow-

   not even an exoskeleton to protect me
   in this strange country.