My Drinking Buddy

Reading after dinner, I reach for my glass – 

find a fruit fly floating 

in my lush, French pinot noir, 

one of our wines of the month from Underdog. 

(I’m not making that up.) Now the underdog 

is little FF.

As I tip the wine toward my mouth,

I keep watch. I don’t want to swallow him 

any more than I want to sacrifice good wine. 

Every time the wine comes toward me, he floats back. 

Hello. Goodbye. Hello. Goodbye.

I try to catch him on dry glass – 

offer escape if he’s alive.

I dip a finger in and scoop him out. 

He staggers over soft hand, hard nail. 

Is he drunk or just half drowned? 

He struggles to flutter wings – too soggy. 

I blow on him, trying to help. 

My gale force carries him off.

He lands on my lap throw – 

a wine-colored desert. 

He wanders up and down dunes, 

away from me, then back       for ten minutes. 

(Probably forty years to a fruit fly.) 

I blow more gently. 

Come on, little buddy, I whisper. 

(Wouldn’t want anyone but him to hear.)

He lifts off!

© (2022) Alarie Tennille. First published in I-70 Review