The Invitation

Rachel Curzon

Slow flies drag about the kitchen, putting their white hooves in my jam smears and my crumbs. They like the counter top’s rolled edge, they like this streaked cupboard, they are happily accommodated. Why does my raised hand not send them into panic? Why are they so languid? It is provocative, and so I yawn from my window seat to frighten them, showing many of my teeth. I widen my inferior eyes. A mistake. The flies pour in: steady lines of noise, converging. What have I done to deserve them? Their wings bump, and my thoughts are crawled across, they’re seething. I bend my neck to hear the buzz deep in its ridged tubes, all the long red way to my important organs. There is no gauze, there is no mesh cloche that I can use for this. Touch me, and I madden to a swarm.

I think of the fly
when I think of our wedding,
stunned in the tipped glass.

RACHEL CURZON's pamphlet is published under the Faber New Poets scheme. More recent work has appeared in berlin lit, Magma, Propel Magazine, and elsewhere. She lives in North Yorkshire, England.