Fairyflies are the smallest flying insects
Jordan Deveraux 

 
 
and are invisible
to most people without
a microscope. I find
it’s good to start
a poem like this one does
with a fact, then move
toward mystery or
an unsolved act of charity, like the bag
of oranges we once discovered
in the backseat of her car.
It happened, we thought,
while we waited inside
my parents’ house for the Volvo
to heat up & its windshield
to emerge from the cocoon of ice it had grown
overnight. It was Christmas
morning, and so we guessed
it was the next-door neighbor
Jeff, who must have crept
across the driveway, opened
the back door and dropped in the gift
of oranges like stolen gold. It was
like one of those holiday commercials
in which a good deed is done
anonymously, but by the end
the viewer knows Coca-Cola
or Chevron was behind
the whole thing. In the suburbs
these things can happen
in real life. So you can imagine
our disappointment when we found out
it wasn’t Jeff but my mother,
or rather it was we, my girlfriend
and I, who forgot about them,
that little bag clementines among
the long list of groceries
my mother asked us to pick up
a couple days before, hidden
yet not in the detritus
of backseats. Embarrassed by the fact
of our ordinary fruit, we then did
what any true believers would:
we threw out the torn, frosty peels
and wiped the evidence
from our chins. 
 









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About the Author: 
Jordan Deveraux currently resides in Minnesota, where he is the managing editor for Blue Earth Review. When he’s not doing poetry, he likes to skateboard and watch movies. This is his first publication.  

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