The Return of the Ballerina Fly

                         The Return of a Ballerina Fly

With grace, the ballerina fly glides one leg along the other 
she asks me to dance just before her death in my coffee.
What might it taste like to backstroke in coffee with cream,
snort caffeine, inhale a half-real, half-decaf ocean,
and hear waves of java swish in an over-sized cup?

Munich and Mr. Spitz are oblivious to these ideas hanging only
in Olympic sizes. Truth is the fly did not ask me to dance, so I'll
forego partners who dive from edges into my drinks.
Heard tell my father was a ducky shincracker -a good dancer who cracked shins.
Overmorrow the fly and I might dance again, a dance revived like the twist. 

Big bugs and some people love hard and fast. Together fly and I are mellow 
as fish in the sea. The ballerina fly, dead in the coffee cup will come back to life,
seems Ms. Kitty will give her mouth-to-mouth, through the tiniest of straws.
Then the fly and I will swim together in a caramel cream latte - love
without constraints.

One day we'll laugh about the amorphous cup and death escaped 
thanks to egalitarian Ms. Kitty who knows it takes a village.
Kitty will offer the fly a position in her coffee shop.
"Lagniappe" the fly repeats to all customers ¬¬-
they grin and slap her right betwist her wings or theirs.

First Ballerina Fly rubbed one leg against another, a second later,
floating in coffee, now she's plie-ing her long legs, and requesting 
"Dance me to the end of love." Or, might it be another fly 
the way people must look the same to the raven
far above?

Mary Strong Jackson 



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