Mote

The husk of a housefly bowled
into the kitchen light like something
in your eye that would cause more harm
than good to remove. Instead,
live with it. Look around it. The lamp
a dish thrown and arrested mid-air.
Suspended by something like regret,
but not quite. Wishing you’d been born
a twin or an owl. Yet the light is still
mostly light and the singular shadow
invisible under the compound
cloud that cast it. Mostly

you only look up when someone visits.
And when you do, the cloud is fly-
shaped. Your visitors, you assume, note
what you have not removed, invent
excusable excuses. The chair
with its hidden rot. The dark or height
you’d rather not stand in. Later,
alone, you see the fly, years dead,
as a small wrecked plane
on your smaller island. It’s a matter
of relativity. You’d call it a blind spot
if it wasn’t the only thing you can see.