flies

flies of horse and house buzz by, bang into windowblinds,
black specks hurtling around the room.
they land on hard-to-reach places on her body, like the small of her back,
skitter contaminated around the bottom of her shoulder blades.
her fingers twitch and she probably wishes she can swat them away,
relieve the constant insect tickle, break their little legs.
but her hands don't work anymore and her resolve has trickled and swayed,
like an avalanche of hourglass sands cascading fast and final with haste.
she laughs at me, teeth bared, says i'm a glutton for punishing myself while i stay.
i am self-scourged and not cleansed, hell-forged and incensed,
her mimicky giggles no longer eliciting smiles, only rage.

i try to surgically sew our fingers together when the doctor's absent,
or at the minimum hug our knuckles, the way we used to
when our love was bright-eyed and nascent.
over her bed, my knees are buckling and the flies are singing
their indiscernible song - i'm crying and she's humming along.
she remembers bumming cigarettes from jokers on street corners,
streetlight spotlights casting her in a prominent luminescence,
alabaster glow and a throat of gold, dancing alone in the french quarter,
even when the hobos sinned away and the only audience
were the flies partying at the trash bins.
then with a wedge, our hands are held and interwoven, but i'm the one applying pressure,
keeping us together, waiting for her to stop following the bugs flying around the room,
for her to put in some sort of effort.

i squeeze her palm in a good-nudge manner and she looks through me,
less interested because i'm a static man and not the same kind of pest.
a faraway glance, an empty glare, the old fashioned bare blank stare,
the same stare she sported when we drove ninety-five miles per hour
down i-95 and her eyes were closed,
citing faith in god and faith in us; i had no excitement, eyeing the bus
speeding along in front,
frozen while she clutched the steering wheel rigid and told me
with a lovely honey beginning that i tickled those hard to reach places
in her soul, that my words were the ones sealing wounds,
that the afternoon we stole the balloons from a vendor and set them free
was her absolute fondest memory.
and she opened her eyes and looked at me
with an aliveness in her iris.

but today she's focused on the flies and i am unimportant.
dormant emotions lie unstirred in her while i'm still crying, fit to burst.
i can't help striving to make sure she isn't dying,
but my strides are losing speed and i'm choking worse and worse.
to nurse her back to health would be heavenly, to not dig the plot, hire the hearse.
somewhere along my nerve endings and larynx vibrations,
my "i love you so much" struggles to escape.
the breath is collected, tongue is curled, mouth is about to form,
until the buzzing begins behind my ears and her gaze slips from mine,
transfixed,
following the flies.