San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly

Lisa Marie Sandoval

Solomon’s Fly

I watch a fly fall into a flower,

a flaming crimson rose,
so slender and tall. She curtsies
with a flirtatious blossom bow.
Her lush fair face, her gathered siren skirt,
framing soft-pink folds open to
the fly. His deep black eyes see all
supple petals tittering at once.
He plunges pupils first into their center
with bottomless buzzing shudders,
bathed in the fragrant state of her
and spends his strength
in frenzied search of Babylon.