Catherine Graham’s “Moths”

I have tried in various moments to imagine how difficult it would be for a child to learn that a parent is dying. Most of us would wish that such an event would never need to occur because we know how unbearably alone the child would feel, become. In her poem “Moths”, from her poetry collection Winterkill, Catherine Graham explores just such an event: a young daughter’s growing comprehension of the fact that her mother is ill and dying.