Night Work

Lamp light lures us indoors –
death's heads on dust wings
trailing thread legs, our shadows

fibrillating white silk shades.
Light gone, we pat-flap walls
lofting thick flutters at ceiling seams

until we fall – too spent to escape
the cat's trapping paw. By day,
survivors creep tented in gray

skirting furled husks that lie
on floor or windowsill,
friable sarcophagi.