mayflies 
only live for one day 
but that isn’t entirely true 
they spend most of their year 
of life underwater as a gilled nymph 
with a scorpion tail syphoning detritus 
and algae from rich silt in the shallows of 
rivers curling in the filtered light and the muffled 
trilling of rain cracking shells and fleshing anew 

before they are called by longer days and shorter nights 
to transform into flying things with no mouths no 
way to eat with the one yearning to cling to 
a mate in the noise and flash of a may dusk 
after which the female deposits her eggs 
into the water and both flies drop 
their weightless bodies 
back into the 
womb

Scott Ferry

As an RN in the great Pacific Northwest, Scott Ferry helps our Veterans heal. In other lives, he taught English and practiced acupuncture. He also serves as Senior Editor at Gleam: Journal of the Cadralor, and his writing appears in American Journal of Poetry, Cultural Weekly, KYSO Flash, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Misfit, Noble/Gas Qtrly, Slippery Elm, Spillway, and Swimming with Elephants, among others.

His third book of poetry, These Hands of Myrrh, is upcoming from Kelsay Books. His first collection, The only thing that makes sense is to grow, was published by Moon Tide Press in December 2019, and his second, Mr. Rogers kills fruit flies, by Main Street Rag in October 2020.

Author’s website: https://ferrypoetry.com