Illustration by Scout Mayo
Written by Abigail Hawk
Edited by Parivash Fahim Goff & Sonia Chintha
i saved a fly today.
it labored
in my dirty mug,
a muddy and cold
coffee death puddle.
i couldn’t bear the drowning,
being so surrounded
by death and dying as of late.
so i plucked it out, placed it on my finger,
blew stale air on its iridescent wings,
and it rested there,
pinning me with its ommatidia.
when i tried to put it outside,
it wouldn’t let go:
it just held six-fold on my fifth digit,
its tarsi tasting my fingerprint.
perhaps i over-personified,
but those mosaic eyes
compounded me
with a thousand points of light
and their apparent,
if short-sighted,
gratitude.
i saved a fly today.
or maybe i
was the one
in need of saving.
Abigail Hawk
Abigail Hawk is an award-winning actor, singer, writer, humanitarian, and mom. She has starred opposite industry giants Chevy Chase, Laurence Fishburne, Jim Gaffigan, and Mariska Hargitay, to name a few, but she most enjoys working alongside legend Tom Selleck as Detective Abigail Baker on the CBS series, Blue Bloods. When she’s not keeping Commissioner Reagan in line, Abigail enjoys singing, writing, living, loving, over-posting on social media, and parenting two brilliant sons with her husband.