Megan Nichols

Megan Nichols is the author of the chapbook Animal Unfit (Belle Point Press, 2023). Her poems have appeared in The Threepenny Review, Poetry Daily, Plume, and elsewhere. She was a finalist for Write Bloody’s 2021 Jack McCarthy Book Prize and the 2024 Peseroff Poetry Prize. She serves as Managing Editor at Variant Literature. Born and raised in Southern California, she currently lives in the Arkansas Ozarks. https://megannicholswriter.com

HOUSE FLY by Megan Nichols

Superstition slipped in with the last of the September flies. My hands were full and I couldn’t get the door shut fast enough behind me. There was a clog in the bathroom sink where drain flies had nested. Something about my slowness made me wonder if we didn’t deserve it. Jake said to get hot vinegar if I was too damn scared of store bought bug killer. The sour smell drove him out all afternoon and when he came back he saw I had let the vinegar boil out. He headed upstairs with a bottle of bleach but found the…

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