Mark Russell

#93: Fly

She says her name is Christabel. She flicks at my hair, close to my right eye. She asks me if it hurts. I ask her what she means. The fly, she says. That fly, is it still there? I thought I lost it back in Philadelphia. We eat our cream cheese bagels. Christabel’s is laced with pepper and slices of mango. I’ve never seen the like. Mine is very traditional. That fly has been following me around for what seems like ages, I say. How long? I was five, so a good fifty-odd years. That is ages, she says. I used to think it was held there by a spider’s web. Was it? Well, I’ve never seen a spider there, so it must have been a silly, youthful notion. You do seem immature, she says. Now, I’m wiser, I think the fly must be there of its own volition, I say. Two men in black felt fedoras join us at our table. Christabel tells them we aren’t looking for company. They push her plate off the table and it smashes on the floor. The manager rushes over and demands she leave. When she doesn’t, he rings a little bell and two bus boys pick her up on either side and throw her into the street. You’ve come for me, haven’t you, I say to the men in felt fedoras. One of them knocks my bagel out of my hand. We’ve come for the fly, he says.

Mark Russell’s poems have been published recently in Poetry Wales, bath magg, Tears in the Fence, and Mercurius. He lives in Scotland.