notdeermag
Mothman's girlfriend doesn't wait, Lynn Finger
at home for him.
They have it out one night about how
he jumps
into the headlights on the bridge.
She calls it “greedy seeking,”
instead of letting the drivers discover him
emerging from the shadows,
which is more terrifying.
She goes out. She has her own bridges to stalk
at night, with her ripped stockings, rippled
silk wings
and her red facet eyes.
She’s doesn’t answer
when he calls, in fact throws her phone
into the river.
He goes out again, scares cars all night,
his red eyes large as plates. His heart
isn’t in it, though.
She’s hasn’t answered
him in hours.
He flexes as the next set of headlights
rake him, and jumps into what he thinks
is the glare
of a motorcycle lamp.
But it’s her, and she’s holding a large
flashlight. “How would I ever
find you
again, if you didn’t love the light?”
she asks. “Such a true moth.”
He folds her into his clotted wings,
and they levitate through the approaching
headlamps of a semi-tractor trailer,
the driver not knowing
if he is witness to
the flight
of a many-winged devil, or has just realized a way
to capitalize on what up to now
has been his boring life.
Lynn Finger’s writings have appeared in 8Poems, Perhappened, Twin Pies, Book of Matches, Miniskirt Magazine, Drunk Monkeys and is forthcoming in Resurrection Mag. Lynn is an editor at Harpy Hybrid Review and works with a group that mentors writers in prison. Follow Lynn on Twitter @sweetfirefly2.