Though they ate her slip into a moth, she wears it still

down into the evening air of men in black dress

stuffing foie gras down their throats, the gavage of kings.

This will do, she says to the cooks in a line,

turning to the king who wears a cave upon his back

where his cape should be.

You see but half his face and forty eyes in there.

Century after century language dies into the mouth

of an overlarge lover, like a candle in the mouth

of a candle snuffer. She learns a new one though.