The House Fly

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"An animal's eyes have the power to speak a great language."
Martin Buber

That wretched February blew my mind's
sweet dreams of love and mai tais in Maui
like a typhoon the time I was drowning
my sorrow with beer that tasted lousy
when onto my bathtub flew a house fly
whose one hundred eyes wouldn't be lucid
at that time of year next to a human,
glad to find someone else who was stupid.

So what is so rare as a day in June?
Perfect love and a fly in the winter
that should have flown but fell in the water
after I swatted it with my finger.
Well, I wouldn't let that fly on my watch,
so I tossed it on a shag rug nearby
after I ladled it up from the tub,
but there in the pile, my house fly died.

I don't know why when I jumped from the tub
I didn't toss it into the toilet,
but loaded for bear I barely sprinted
into the bedroom to find a doily
that, serving no purpose, could be a shroud
I wrapped the fly in on her vanity
and lifted from her waste paper basket
my verses about how cold life can be.

And I laughed at how that funeral rite
with a half-baked poem pulled from a basket
cleansed like baptism unlike eulogies
when I folded it into a casket,
content that I found a purpose for it,
no longer wanting to read myself lies
from a piece of sheet I somehow disguised
that had more I's than a house fly in it.

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6 Comments
Maria2394Maria2394about 13 years ago
enjoyed

your poem very much. :)

~ maria

vrosej10vrosej10about 13 years ago
~

A nice telling of one of those weird little incidents that make up life. Good move not trying to rationalise your action.

AngelineAngelineabout 13 years ago
Pretty funny

and I gave it a five though I suspect it'd work as well, perhaps better, if the strophes were lighter, less packed with info. I mean it is just a fly right, though the point about your failed poem being a fitting last resting place for it made me grin. ----> :D (see?)

GuiltyPleasureGuiltyPleasureabout 13 years ago
Much ado.....

......dopey winter fly has watery end. I like how you've built a poem around such a small incident and widened the lens to include so much else - skillful.

Tess.

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