FOREWORD: The poor fly thinks its outside, alas, it isn't. (Emily Dickinson's poem 'I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died' is provided for reference puposes only.)

MOURNING FLOWERS

Mourning flowers,
moulting wet pollen,
brush the wings of a fly
swinging past –
and dodging the tedious TICK
of a dangerous TOCK
striking minutely on a small,
shaking clock, it
swings into view –

Just as the last
fall of her breast
steers me from harm,
away to the West,
where the flowers, unarmed,
beckon me back beckon me when
swinging anew
they beckon again.
Blue (unlike her) and about
to ‘pass by’ in twenty-three hours,
I wonder why she managed, wandering out
high (and dry), despite the loud showers –
swinging once more

it harasses a glow in the East,
burning its wings, (unlike before),
and jitters a code for the flowers
that cease to resemble the garden
it greatly adores –
swinging back

to my many-windowed demise,
I quickly return, bumping, relentless,
on the door to the world
ignoring dull FLICKS,
and desolate KNOCKS,
and winking ‘farewell’
through a delicate fence impearled
with the breath of
her quizzical smell
the door to the world winks ‘farewell’ –
‘farewell’ –

Farewell.

I HEARD A FLY BUZZ WHEN I DIED
Emily Dickinson

I heard a Fly buzz when I died;
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air
Between the Heaves of Storm.

The Eyes around had wrung them dry,
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset, when the King
Be witnessed in the Room.

I willed my Keepsakes, signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable, and then it was
There interposed a Fly,

With Blue, uncertain, stumbling Buzz,
Between the light and me;
And then the Windows failed, and then
I could not see to see.