*mother, n. [/
mɑθər/] — To watch butterflies or moths is an activity known as
“butterflying” or “mothing.” A “mother” is someone who engages in this pursuit.

It is the mimicry, the cryptic eyespots that say the owl feeds on the owl
moth. It is how, in our observation, we find
someone will consume us too
and pull, by day, the dust off our backs, and swallow
by dusk the tiny scales that make up the dust. In the sink
the noctuid creature, hairy, still on ceramic,
uncurls its straw-tongue, as if to feed.
It is to be sought after. Not found.
It is to always sleep with wings open.

–E.C. Belli,
plein jeu
Accents Publishing

More from plein jeu and E.C. Belli:

• “Self-Portrait as Time Traveler”
• “Appalachia”
• “Elegy”
• “Untitled”
• plein jeu at the Accents Store

A Swiss native, E.C. Belli’s poetry and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in Guernica, Gulf Coast, FIELD, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Antioch Review, Western Humanities Review, Caketrain, Mid-American Review and also in Europe: revue littéraire mensuelle, PO&SIE and Voix d’Encre (France). Her prose has also appeared in Words Without Borders, BOMBlog and Iris (University of Virginia). She is a recent graduate of the MFA program in Writing and Translation at Columbia University where she was the recipient of a 2010 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans. She writes in both French and English.