The Winter Fly

Come friend, said I to the sluggish fly

battering at December light, give it up

and die. Three beat the outside screen

toward warmth, while this one couldn't wait

to freeze. Look at me, I said. Enormous,

like an omnipotent god to you,

or surely favored by deathless gods,

and even I must meet death's bitter fate.

Perhaps smashed in my modest car

by a Hummer driven by a brash prick

braying on his cell phone, or sickened

maybe by a new flu bug made resistant

to old physix by the fecklessness of ones

who without history imagine themselves

immortals. (Even as I speak, I'll bet

this horror swarms your filthy hairs.)

Hearing this, she paused and spread

her wings wide. I crushed her

in a soiled Kleenex and with no last rites

swirled her down the toilet bowl

to the dank septic's stagnant tarn

where bacteria and enzymes absorbed

her glistening fat. I know not if I killed

or freed the spirit in one so small,

but this I do know: even more than

the very gates of hell do I hate the ones

who have made this world yet prate

as lies the truths of another.