FLY That fly, which is so bothersome Can’t you see: swat it down with rolled That blue-black insect body lying The road is station to station. About the Author Robert Rothman lives in Northern California, near extensive trails and open space, with the Pacific Ocean over the hill. His work has appeared in Atlanta Review, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, Tampa Review, Willow Review, and over one hundred fifty other literary journals in the United States, England, Ireland, Canada, Wales, Australia, India and Hong Kong. Please see his website (www.robertrothmanpoet.com) for more information about him and his work.
with its maddening buzzing, circling
around your head, won’t give up.
newspaper or a magazine; if you kill
the nuisance, you know it in an instant:
a spear in your side; dark blood runs.
there on the ground; stilled, inert,
infinitesimal. You remember what
you forgot: you are wholly one.
Be forgiving you small,
buzzing, circling,
maddening needy thing.
