The Return of the Fly

You’ve come a long way in the short time
since landing here from within a bouquet

bought on a whim after dinner with someone new,
just as it was starting to rain, and I came up,

out of the subway, seeing roses across the street
that I thought would remind me of him.

This desk, my most accustomed perch,
you’ve made your own, nimble as a dust mote  

in a breeze, flirting on just-hatched, infinitesimal feet
with the ledge of a thorn, the edge of a vase

you’ve launched yourself off of to conquer space,
then Time itself by landing next on the crown

of a carriage clock, then down to make a beauty mark
on a cheek of the cartoon sun at the top-left corner  

of the Ouija board my laptop’s resting on, and now
and again to the rim of a cup of coffee gone cold

that if you’re so brash as to dive into I’ll jump
to fish you from with a quick-torn strip of paper –  

the least I could do for you for your reminding me
how much more alive I could be if on the wing,

alighting on everything with equal weight,
making every thing of interest just by touching

to be touched in fair return…that I’m ephemeral
as you and the roses desired again, red ones

at last, that I now pledge to you shall be replaced
once these from which you’ve brought your message die.

First published, in an earlier version, in Literary Imagination