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EIspeth Marriner fingered the sticky surface of the thick
tumbler on the gimpy-legged table and wondered what in
hell she was doing in the dingy little restaurant. As a poet，
she reminded herself， it was her duty to have her feet in the
mire as well as her head in the clouds---but this was going a
little too far. Besides， the night sky outside was cloudless.
Seeking to screen out Mack s insistent and unsubtle
prodding of the leather-skinned native he was plying with
the hot and heavy liquid molasses that passed for rum in
this incredibly backward little Carolina community， she
concentrated on the strip of pale amber flypaper that dan-
fled from the ceiling， which was less than six feet above her
head.
At regular intervals the curved planes of its spiral surface
glistened menacingly in the dim reflection of the green-
shaded lamp that dangled beyond it from a dark-brown
cord. Less regularly， trapped insects buzzeo nystencat pro-
test at such unmannerly death -as faced them. She counted
the flies she could see imbedded in its sticky surface. There
were exactly fourteen， five more than had been present the
night before. It was these five that were buzzing--the oth-
ers were still.
Fourteen， she thought. Fourteen--the magic number
that spelled sonnet. She began mentally to frame a sonnet
to fourteen wretched flies， caught in a spiral of flypaper，
five alive， nine dead. Surely even such unpleasant crea-
tures merited some sort of memorial to their passing.
She lost the thread of her verse in the midst of a
couplet---and her rhyme scheme with it. Her head was ach-
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