NATHANIEL CALHOUN
midge
– something tore loose a leg from the midge
nosing below this unfurling ink. one from
the tribe of all-dead-every-morning, team
fill-no-spiders, climb-through-screens, make-
no-noise, the little brown mushroom of
bugs, not the subtext but the dotted j’s,
wiped clean for no cost savings. the being
within the creature, stricken now by
sunlight next by shadow – his wings ruffled
by wind – seems to notice percussion
flowing from penpoint. a millisecond before
my puff of dislodging air requests space to
turn the page, he lifts off and vanishes – to
reinstantiate moments later in my teacup,
drowned like his brother, and soon drunk
up, since fishing implements are dirtier than
the blanched speck of him.