The Long & Short of It

If you place a plate of water directly below a vibrant light, moths will fly into the beam bouncing off the water. By nature they are celestial travelers, navigating flight by the moon, always in their upper field of vision even after long distance travel. Often they mistake close artificial light for lunar glow and by instinct adjust the angle of their paths to keep the radiance above. Moths spiral toward the gleam, plummeting to their deaths.

Moths travel long distances, the moon always in their upper field of vision. Often they mistake close artificial light for lunar glow and spiral toward the gleam, the celestial travelers plummeting a path to their deaths.

Often moths mistake lights for the moon, adjust the angle of their paths and spiral long distances to the artificial gleam, plummeting to their deaths.

Moths spiral toward their deaths.

Chella Courington teaches writing and literature at Santa Barbara City College. Her work appears in The Los Angeles Review, Gone Lawn, Gargoyle, The Collagist, and SmokeLong Quarterly. In 2011 Courington published Paper Covers Rock, a flip book of lined poetry; Girls & Women, a chapbook of prose poetry; and Talking Did Not Come Easily to Diana, an e-book of linked microfiction.