Often when he sends out rejections,
he thinks of the houseflies he has to chase
all around his place in the summer
with a can of Raid or a rolled up
magazine that may or may not
contain a poem of his own, proof
of another’s generosity. No, he doesn’t
consider his fellow writers insects
with their busy little legs and the way
they co-opt his cat’s food bowl,
stubbornly refusing his pleas
for a safe exodus through the window
he’s cracked just for their survival.
He means the guilt, the apologies
he whispers as he runs the bathroom sink
over their still-twitching bodies,
and most of all, how it feels
to watch them spiral to the floor
like the fading chords of an opera
sung in the language of too many eyes,
cast down near a refrigerator
filled to the brim with coffee
and liquor and three different kinds
of meat sliced thin as bandages.
Michael Meyerhofer's fifth poetry book, Ragged Eden, was published by Glass Lyre Press. He has been the recipient of the James Wright Poetry Award, the Liam Rector First Book Award, the Brick Road Poetry Book Prize, and other honors. His work has appeared in Southern Review, Ploughshares, Rattle, Hayden's Ferry, Gargoyle Magazine, River Styx, Missouri Review, and other journals. He is also the author of a fantasy series and the Poetry Editor of Atticus Review. For more information and an embarrassing childhood photo, visit his website.