The Fly
Not knowing human movement to
a fly would seem slow motion,
she chased it room to room.
She swatted a Venetian blind,
a lampshade, her image
in a mirror. When it got
out of reach on the ceiling
she lay down to contemplate,
but she wondered if she had left
a pot of boiling water, she remembered
a doctor’s appointment, she
thought about her childhood,
her parents, her marriage,
her children. She started
to cry but there it was
on her knee. She would crush it
against her body to kill it
but it was already across the room
flying in unpredictable patterns,
its aerobatics so elusive
they became an aerial blueprint
of her mind: faces, places and numbers
buzzing close but out of reach.
The fly flew back to the ceiling.
She lay down again, thought about
nothing and cried. The fly looked
down through its compound eyes
and saw her as a mosaic.
She didn’t wake
until afternoon, too late for
childhood, parents, marriage, children.
She stared into the broken mirror and
saw what the fly saw.
From The Louisiana Review.