The Luna Moth Has No Mouth

All insects have them yet the luna moth leaves

its mouth and the memory of hunger behind

with its caterpillar past. Now it survives by

absorbing moonlight, hence, its name. There’s

so much moon for the nocturnal feasting, we

witness its depletion each month. The moon,

so helpless to the millions of insects that fly

by to take their share of luminescence.

The moon, so large we can see it, even when

we don’t mean to, is also so far away we can’t

hear its cry for help. It’s a silent demise, like

a drop of sweat vanishing on the hot sand.

Ice melting in the embrace of a glass of water.

The luna moth has no mouth, we’re told. But

neither does the moon. It dies of the opposite

of neglect, which is overindulgence, and nary

an utterance of objection from its moon glow.

The moon perishes from too much attention,

such vanity, such self-centeredness. It doesn’t

need a mouth because poets and lovers

are its spokespeople, an entire publicity machine

at its disposal to sing its praises, punch-drunk

and, truth be told, pernicious. Enough already,

babbling bards and lovesick turtledoves, the moon

gets plenty of play. That’s why it keeps coming

back for more. It feeds on flattery the way

the luna moths drink from its arrogant beams.

Maybe we have it all wrong and the moths

are trying to save us susceptible humans from

this prison of codependence: ego enabling ego.

Luna moths, our diminutive heroes on a fool’s

errand, without mouths—or stomachs!—live only

for a week or so, yet spend that precious time

delivering the same unheeded message:

Don’t waste your life on those who

will never love the way you do.

Rigoberto González

Rigoberto González is an award-winning poet, memoirist, novelist, and critic whose work explores identity, migration, family, and belonging. 

Born in Bakersfield, California, and raised in Michoacán, Mexico, González is the author of more than a dozen books, including To the Boy Who Was Night: Poems Selected and New (2023), The Book of Ruin (2019), and Unpeopled Eden (2013), winner of a Lambda Literary Award. His memoir Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa received the American Book Award, and his debut novel Crossing Vines won ForeWord Magazine’s Fiction Book of the Year Award.

His honors include the 2025 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Lannan Foundation, as well as the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets. 

A former critic at large for the LA Times, and contributing editor for Poets & Writers, González sits on the Board of Directors of the National Book Critics Circle, and on the Advisory Circle of Con Tinta, a collective of Chicano/Latino activist writers. González is the series editor for the Camino del Sol Latinx Literary Series at the University of Arizona Press. 

He is currently a professor of English and creative writing at Rutgers University-Newark.