Dear Bottlefly by Eric Fisher Stone

Your wings murmur hymns

that the dead return to life,

your body’s gleaming bean

robbing the rabbit’s eye.

Your feet’s rancid needles

rub ablutions in prayer,

anointing hog blood

or fetid patties of meat.

Bride of shit and corpses,

the living need your children,

gluey milk-bottles of maggots

to enact springtime in bogs,

blessing raccoon roadkill

with humming canticles,

ruby-eyed cherub, tiny Christ

raising Lazarus into blossom.

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Eric Fisher Stone is a poet and writing tutor from Fort Worth, Texas. He received his MFA in writing and the environment from Iowa State University. His publications include two full length books of poems: The Providence of Grass, from Chatter House Press, and Animal Joy, from WordTech Editions.