HORSEFLY
I am sitting in my spacious house alone.
A large fly alights.
I stare at it, laugh.
It is the only other living thing.
How did it get in? The windows are screened.
How can it get out? I don’t know.
I decide to let it live. It does no harm.
For the next two days it sometimes
lands on my desk. I say, “Hi.”
Now it’s gone. I sometimes wonder,
did it die, or just get out?
—from Rattle #48, Summer 2015
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Fred Fox: “At 100 years old, I look up and say, ‘If anyone is listening, thank you for another nice day!’ In poetry I boil things down to an essence. Rather than pages and pages of rambling. I like that.”