Barbara Orton
Moths: A Taxonomy
Rustic shoulder-knot, double-striped pug,
setaceous Hebrew character,
little virgin tiger, spun-glass slug,
red-necked footman, nutmeg, drinker,
Mother Shipton, little thorn,
small magpie, drab tent-maker,
police car, unambiguous, blood-vein,
confused Haploa, joyful Holomelina,
Frank’s sphinx, Richard’s fungus, Juanita’s lichen,
beautiful snout, confusing Petrophila,
brown China mark, middle-barred minor,
red-washed prominent, zigzag Furcula,
agreeable tiger, dubious tiger, forgotten tiger,
double-toothed prominent, ochreous pug,
sordid underwing, sharp-stigma looper,
heart and dart, heart and club,
penitent underwing, little wife, old maid,
diabolical fungus, everlasting bud.
Nocturne
The windows of suburban houses
at dusk, suffused with yellow light,
shine their quiet code:
This is your home.
Open the door. Surely
someone will let you in. The fire burns down
in the fireplace; the children are tucked in.
Outside, the moon hangs crisp and full
over the angled roof, the roof that seems
to bring the moon in closer. They will let you in,
kind strangers, and you will belong here,
you will be safe here, you will be their child.
Barbara J. Orton's poems
appear in anthologies including The New Young American Poets, Under the Rock
Umbrella, and Villanelles; in an untitled Web chapbook published by The
Literary Review; and in journals including 32 Poems, Ploughshares,
Pleiades, and The Yale Review. She received her MFAW from Washington
University in St. Louis and is pursuing a Ph.D. in English at Tufts University.
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