By: Marek Kulig
Read outside till I could no longer separate the words from the dark.
Saved my place with my finger, grabbed my beer, and went inside.
Turned on the lamp and under it set the glass on the end table.
Fell back onto the sofa and picked up where I left off.
Kept my eyes on the line and let my peripherals guide
my hand, arm extending like a spy glass, toward the drink.
That’s when I noticed the fly floating on the surface, small, like a letter
broken off of a word. I laid the book, prose down, over my knee.
Poked at the fly and, like an arcade claw, lifted my finger
without it falling back in and wiped it on my pants.
And I swear the thing started to walk down my leg,
not in the jagged column of contiguous Zs either—what tolerance!
What’re you, nuts? I threw up my hands.
Had to really concentrate, squint to perceive that its wings had started to move,
then so fast there was no way to tell anymore they were wings.
Marek Kulig immigrated to the USA from Poland in 1992. A former high school English teacher, he is currently a sales representative for a molecular diagnostics laboratory. His poems and translations were published or are about to be published in Journal of NJ Poets, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Spire Light, Jet Fuel Review, Under Review, Fish Publishing, Seneca Review, National Translation Month and others.