Julia Kooi Talen

Bugs

I had been dreaming that there were bugs everywhere,
mud flecks moving up my ankles,
clicking like the dripping of coffee into the pot. 

My friend texted me beetle & worm emojis that slid into my gut &
I could feel my microbiome now covering my body, my house
plant like an amoeba, fluttering in slow motion. 

It was 7 degrees outside & my windows crinkled with frost &
walking across the lines of ice was a lone cluster fly
that must have hatched in the window 3 

days ago when it was a high of 47
degrees, & my balmy palms made bread and coffee &
this was before the dream of the roaches in corners up my legs, before 

the fight with my mother, &
the fly whispered to me that they’d lived for years in my house &
that they had seen 

the ghost maid & mistress
homing in my rib cage &
that they had seen 

my grandmother dwelling in my hips &
that they’d witnessed
me making love to myself, all of the women 

filled with desire &
that the bugs would take this all back,
that the trees were telling the fly 

that they would be reincarnated
not into an emoji, but a raspberry leaf
in the August sun on the front porch & 

so I prayed to the fly,
intoning my most secret whim,
from the depths of my tissue & 

the wish crawled out of me,
landed on her delicate, dying wing
a tear on the frosted window & 

I found her in a fetal position the next day
body buzzed to a q, I scooped
her into my hands and lay her across the soft snow in the front yard

under the oak.

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Julia Kooi Talen is an essayist and poet based in the Midwest where she teaches creative writing and composition. Currently a PhD Candidate in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Missouri-Columbia, Talen lives with their cat, Otis, and holds an MFA in creative writing from Northern Michigan University as well as an MSW from the University of Denver.