When Gerald was born
He was stuffed in a shoe,
And left in a wardrobe to perish,
But was saved in the nick,
By an eclipse of moths,
A cherub those insects would cherish.

This strange noisy creature,
So unlike their own,
Was brought up
To rule as their king.
He grew to love light bulbs,
Twilight and the moon,
And was lacking, only in wings.

Each year on the solstice
Gerald wakes in his bed,
To find himself covered in moth.
They throng in his armchairs;
They chew on his shirts;
A gang of them dance in his loft.

They appear all a flutter,
All sizes and hues,
Ruffling and giddy with pleasure.
Thwabbing their papery wings fro and to,
Awaiting their king’s verbal measure.

He sings of the heaven awaiting them all,
On a light bulb’s eternal lit plain
But only the holies, the nibbling and pious
Shall mothstastic nirvana obtain.

The wee nursery moths are regaled and excited
As tales of dark terror fill their ears,
Of Little Miss Moth-ate, and lavender bags,
And camphor strewn wardrobes of fear.

Mothropolis Central can always be found,
In a bedroom that’s long been discarded.
It’s filled with all manner of woollen delights,
But mostly of moth-eaten cardies.

For there in the dark of Gerald’s dank abode,
The Lepidoptera king, he enthrals.
Mothmatically speaking, no mothstery here . . .
‘Tis the night of the giant moth balls!