Fly Over Lethe

In the meeting there is a fly

Fresh from the chrysalis

It stalks my coffee cup

I wave it away 

It finds a refuge

Gray white wall, its flatness, drywall

I am bothered by the fly

I imagine that it is drowning in my coffee

Overcome by the bitterness that is not Lethe

I remember my first cup 

I am Iraq

On my left, Iran

And next to me, Israel
A girl
I was unkind to her in elementary school

Her resolution has made the floor

She reigns fury
But if she recognizes me
I am grateful she pretends she doesn’t

The storm her brown eyes are gathering will belie her retort

I wonder how the Jewish girl got lucky
Got Israel

Private schools
One day I will figure out
Nothing is left to chance when you have the money to pay for it

This is the human rights committee

Even in 1990 it is ironic

Saddam Hussein is fashioning the new Babylon

Hitler style, with a distinct Third Reich cut

The Kurds are not in, but gassing them is

Weathered yellow ribbons linger like moss on oak trees

A proper fascist, I can’t deign it

My resolution won’t make the floor

Wrought with youthful liberalism and pseudo socialist glean

I didn’t follow Iraqi script

An American woman does not a good Iraqi make

If the burqa doesn’t fit, you just can’t commit

I see Turkey standing in the doorway

Looking fly in a wide red bandanna

His mop of blond curls pulled tightly off his pretty face

His blue eyes shine as he ditches

The environmental committee

He rescues me because no one cares

What Turkey has to say either

We are unsexy countries

Other countries will know how to better solve our ugly problems

Our opinion is not necessary

In the wide corridor are break out groups of model American teenagers

Resolving issues the way the Christian Science Monitor told us to

I spy a silver coffee urn atop a table cloaked in red

I decide I am going to start drinking coffee

Black

Not wanting to ever be dependent on the crème or the sugar

An executive order cools the coffee

Cold from the window to the wall

Where have all the yellow ribbons gone

Fibers degraded by weather

Time and the economy of oil

The pretty fly, with the petulant buzz, I wave away

I ascend the spiraling staircase

To look closer at that gossamer web

A fine pattern of longitude and latitude

Meridians and time spanning backwards to tomorrow

Distracted by the bleeding faces of Syrian children

The maddening buzz of degenerated flies

With their fancy mirrored crowns

Parrot other men’s thinking
Cloaked in the velvet of green and purple robes

Drink from the cup

Filled with the sweet bourbon of Lethe