The first writing school on the Internet
Mothman took my photograph in Southern Tennessee
so I fell in love with him.
That’s what I told myself, anyway, to get through
the soundless months
when an empty bed was jagged ice & I needed a body
to hold to, to thaw through. Mothman pointed his camera at me
& I loved his angles, his rule of thirds,
the way his camera cleaved my jawline
& washed me through with light. I was almost beautiful,
almost on fire—
was I bright enough to devour?—
& he was cryptic behind the camera lens, hirsute with little mysteries.
I wanted to be wanted & he wanted
a beam of light to chew through.
Still, in picture, my face prostrates itself
like a dream—
my hair curls into specters of light
that the moth in him could devour.
What happens to a body when its flame goes out?
Tell me how monsters keep warm in the winter,
Hairless & cold-blooded, rubbing their wings
by the ash from a blaze of memories.
Mothman gripped my knee on Broadway
& my flesh sparked like a secret. Mothman pulled
the light from my body
& I was numb again, another monster in the closet.
I don’t blame Mothman for his hunger,
but I set myself on fire
just to be something worth wanting,
now I’m unlit ashes in his memory.
I was 19, teetering on the brinks
of manhood & monstrosity, & I wondered
whom Mothman could love more:
the boy or the beast?
About Sean Glatch
Sean Glatch is a poet, editor, and educator from Milwaukee, WI. His poetry has been featured in 8 Poems, L’Ephemere Review, Rising Phoenix Press, and The Poetry Annals. Sean is a Katherine Keller fellow, a Best of the Net nominee, and the former Editor-in-Chief of The Cypress Dome at the University of Central Florida. He’s probably thinking about his next cup of coffee.
Exciting, atmospheric, beautiful, weird and wonderful and so much more to feel about.
Thank you, Marian!