Great Fly

–

Fly drives Dr. Hellstrom mad,

Drives him to chronically elevated levels of threat and paranoia.

Hellstrom dedicates his life to Fly’s destruction, puts in motion

A vengeful army of nanobots and drones.

 –

Fly, undeterred, continues his ancient work.

He voyages the multiverse,

Landing on the lips of argonauts, cosmonauts, astronauts,

On lapels and lashes,

On ladies and gentleman,

Lifting off from red rocks and fructifying flesh.

 –

Born on a squirming battlefield,

Fly is time traveler, a great spirit.

Fly is transformative, catalytic,

Opportunistic, apocalyptic

Swarming and thick,

Crash-landing in a pile of shit.

 –

Fly is spiritual vehicle, penance-giver,

A renunciatory Mao, maybe, a Stalin reborn,

Wings tucked in atonement,

Debriding necrosis in expiation,

He comes in waves

Of fecundity, desiccation and redemption.

 –

Deep in his mountain lair,

Dr. Hellstrom codes and codes.

He pokes at sterile buttons,

Lunges with a swatter at anything that moves.

–

The day finally comes.

Fly battles for air supremacy in the troposphere,

He infiltrates the flocks of drones

And they drop, inert, like stupid metal hail.

 –

The victor is Fly –

Maggot-brained,

Eternal outcast.

 –

Hellstrom is aghast.

He clutches his plutonium heart,

Which slows to a barely perceptible tick

And he hears Fly’s buzz when he dies,

The whine of a finely tuned, Lilliputian engine.

 –

Setting down lightly,

Fly delivers his message:

There’s no need for closure

Because it’s never really over.

 –

Fly scrubs his mouthparts out of respect for his nemesis.

His galactic, compound eyes blink twice

Before gorging.

Fly eats Hellstrom slowly,

Eats his children,

Enriches the earth,

Brings abundance and columbines and chrysanthemums.

 –

A storm heaves overhead.

Its wings defy number.

Its cunning is infinite.