At the end of one of the billion light-years of loneliness
My mother sits on the floor of her new kitchen carefully feeding the flies
from her fingertips
All the lights in the house are on so it must be summer
Wings the color of her nail polish
I like to sit on the floor next to her and tell her what a good job she’s
doing
You’re doing such a good job Mom
She’s very patient with the ones who refuse to swallow
She hums a little song and shoves the food in
They still have all their wings
It takes a long time because no one is hungry
•
At the end of one of the billion light-years of loneliness
My father trains the flies to walk from one end of his fingers to the other
One fly for every finger
It’s going to make him rich
Their brains the color of his brain
All the nerves in your hands getting stepped on at once is very calming
Like being a pine tree
Next he’s going to train them to walk across his eyelids
How to hide in the holes in his teeth
When he sings and he never sings we will see wings and brains
•
At the end of one of the billion light-years of loneliness
I stuff my mom and dad into a little red wagon and drag them out
into the ocean
Waves the color of their eyelids
Beach glass
I swim alongside and tell them how good they look
Washed in salt
They haven’t seen each other in a very long time so I wait awhile before
hauling them back
Hauling them out of the underworld
The overworld
Dragging them out of their mansions of snow
from FliesFind it in the library
Copyright © 2011 Michael Dickman
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of Copper Canyon Press.