The Moth in the Conservation Room

Someone has eaten the angel’s sleeve. Not the painted sleeve, but the wool of the tapestry, where a moth found sufficient darkness to begin. The conservator shows me the damage through a magnifying glass. A little daylight enters heaven at the elbow. It’s the larvae, she says. The adults don’t do this. I appreciate the distinction, I think of my mother’s hands, and how they learnt to tremble from hers. Under the table, wrapped in tissue, are threads dyed twenty shades of blue. She chooses one, rejects it, chooses another. What will you do about the hole? Support it, she says, threading her needle. Through the window, a delivery man backs into traffic, trusting a stranger’s lifted hand.