Heshkegh Ka’a
Last night I dreamt the apocalypse. He came weeping in my
living room. He asked to stay. He asked for a story. I played
him a recording. My dead great-aunt spoke and his chest rose
and fell while he listened. She taught us to make a tea with
heshkegh ka’a. Boil the powdered root with water, let it draw
the illness away. The apocalypse wept until he filled a mug,
then the kettle, the room. Before we could add the Devil’s Club
to his tears. I woke. I called my mother. She told me be careful
with that. A little bit of heshkegh ka’a, the larger nettles, eases
a sore throat. Too much burns the tonsils away. I know, she
says, because it happened to my mother, all she had left were
the stones they’d held. I tell her I want to prepare it for the
apocalypse, he’s left his tears in my teacup, in the kettle, he’s
flooded my living room. My mother’s quiet then she laughs. Be
careful she says. A little Devil’s Club will do. That night the
apocalypse returns, weeping. He asks for another sukdu and I
tell him about my grandmother. He holds out his teacup, says
not to worry, he had a tonsillectomy years ago. I laugh and I
tell him not to worry, the heshkegh ka’a can disappear more
than tonsils. Again, he weeps. Again, he promises to return.
Exhibit 10: Polyphemus Moth
Have you ever seen a moth drawn to a flame?
What about a chrysalis?
Tell me about your reoccurring dream.
Do you ever dream of a canoe?
i.
In spring, before they paint their eyes on wings,
the pupae molts. And molts again.
Five times, the pupae becomes an instar,
a process not dissimilar to living
inside a star. Matter slackens. Reforms.
Unlike a star which cycles into its own collapse
or burns until it’s cold. After the fifth cycle,
the polyphemus pupae retreats into its brown, silk
nightgown and sleeps the dream I’ve dreamt,
awakens, embodied.
ii.
The polyphemus moth is named after the cyclops
Polyphemus. The Odyssey depicts him as a violent
giant who ate six of Odysseus’s men. In retribution,
Odysseus blinded Polyphemus with a fire-hardened stick.
I imagine the pupae, dressed in silk and holding
a sooty twig. She darkens a circle of scales
on her hind wings. In the center she places citrine
scales, her false eyes bright spots like the sun’s
dark spots. The sun’s surface darkens as it cools,
cools because its magnetic field surfaces.
Remember when Harry Kim is stranded in the Delta Quadrant?
What did you think when he called the women sirens? Didn’t it look like they were wearing silk? Did you wonder if it was imported?
Tell me your third memory of seeing the stars.
iii.
The magnetic field inhibits the welling of warmer
gas to the sun’s surface. In 1607 Johannes Kepler
used a camera obscura to look at the sun. Now I
use aluminum foil, a music stand, a tube of wrapping
paper, and an empty gift card to build a camera
like Kepler’s. Different materials, the same effect.
On his viewing screen (I used a poster’s back, its dinosaurs
face down in the carpet) he saw a dark spot and thought
Mars moved across the sun. In Kepler’s lifetime,
writers wrote that Polyphemus was a talented lute player,
a skillful lover.
Not a violent man.
iv.
Someone’s gentle hands held the thorax
and pinched. The wings spread.
Someone’s fingers hid #2 stainless steel
pins beneath the wings’ leading.
The support, not dissimilar to an exoskeleton,
just as the moths’ scales are not dissimilar
to a dragon’s hide. Each scale secure in its pocket,
someone left the wings parted.
Although the moth looks like it is, the moth
is not sunning on a crown of marigolds.
Tell me about the last moth.
Not the last moth you saw.
Tell me the story how the last moth was displayed in the museum and we made a pilgrimage to see her.
Tell me. Tell me the difference between pilgrimage and wake?
Tell me
about the incandescent
light.
v.
The sun’s magnetic field is not constant. Its strength
fluctuates, lines tangle, spots move across the surface.
The adult polyphemus moth lives for four days. Vestigial
mouthed, they do not eat, but as caterpillars they ate
up to 86,000 times their weight. Some moths live
like this, encased in acrylic, each coffin a container
that is not dissimilar to death. Perhaps I have it wrong
Perhaps inside the plastic box, the moth becomes an instar
again. Perhaps inside a climate-controlled environment
the moth is waiting for the container to, like Charon,
ferry them to somewhere unlike here.
Annie Wenstrup (Dena’ina) is the author of The Museum of Unnatural Histories (Wesleyan University Press, March 2025). Her poems have been published in Alaska Quarterly Review, Ecotone, Poetry, and elsewhere. She lives in Fairbanks, Alaska with her family, where she serves as a coordinator for Indigenous Nations Poets.
Header photo of polyphemus moth by bcgrafx, courtesy Shutterstock.
