March Fly

Unswerving as an aristocrat
who will have his way—
small exactions of pain,
blood money, at his pleasure.
Your flailing hands defied,
it orchestrates your rage,
veers back undaunted
towards the object, you—
a camera zooming in
from every angle
at breakneck speed:
TAKE ONE—The First Bite!
As always, one wound is
no deliverance from others …
Twigs snap at your sandalled feet
tripping on its ground—
a bush track near water.
The conversation continues:
not dialogue but target practice.
That taut obsessive buzz
means to be the last word—
a point you'll dispute
till this needling air
is shrugged off like clothes
and you race into surf,
encompassed, as you fall,
by an avalanche
of stinging whiteness.