the fly
No matter where you go, it’s all shit
and rot. In the field, they don’t find the
dead calves for days. Fruit grows soft
on the vine, and I’m here for it--
every hole that needs filling, every mouth
slack open and eyes glazed over
with death. The robin fell from the nest
and already the insects were inside its
feathered body, breaking it down into earth.
Hard to tell what is living, already dying.
The ticker winding down to the final hour.
Muscle grown loose around bones, skin sag.
and broken teeth. How to know the difference
between the already and the almost,
not yet. Sometimes impossible. Especially
when god keeps lining up the bodies so lifelike.
Yesterday, the little girl in the field
who buried the bird, so carefully
with her rhyme but startled at my crawl up her leg.
Already her insides grown black with char.
