You Should Be Wrapped in Moth Wings – Eric Subpar

December 1, 2025

There’s no power in Tokyo
but still you shamble ashore
your cuneiform ankles wrapped
in bands of coke-bottle seaweed.

I know all you want my darling is to stand
a hundred feet tall next to a power plant,
to swing your tail
in a crowded room.

the rooftop seismologists will nod and
sigh and check their wristwatches

on the corner one shouts
beware the falling bricks,
but I marvel at your vibrant spine,
your brittle bones, your eyes alight
in hangdog flames,
dowsed by beatified hunger,
that foodless hunger, those teeth
like trampled quonset huts.

Was it really bombs that sent
you back to the ocean floor

or was it that thing I said?