I see you, fly, poised on a basil leaf.
You turn like a jet easing onto a runway
to watch me watching you:
you with your red seed eyes,
I with my red-rimmed glasses.
Why are you reviled? Yes, you walk
on shit—there’s so much for you there!
There’s less for you here on the basil’s
green carpet, yet you stay and let me
study your beauty: the iridescent
green and gold of your back,
the translucent panes of your wings,
the jointed eyelash legs that must
be clothed in some kind of velvet.
You are a fine specimen, fly.
I envy your power to walk on ceilings,
to see all the way around, to spread
those windowpane wings and lift off
from velveteen legs and fly
everywhere the air might hold you.
is the author of the chapbooks The Belly Remembers (Pearl Editions) and Along the Fault Line (Picture Show Press, 2022), and three full-length volumes of poetry: Wild Domestic and Moraine (Pearl Editions, 2011 and 2017) and Morpheus Dips His Oar (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2023). Her work has appeared in A Year of Being Here, Chiron Review, ONE ART, Shelia-Na-Gig, The Worcester Review, Writer’s Almanac, Your Daily Poem and many other publications.
Author’s website:
https://tamaramadisonpoetry.com
