The fly was you but only after
it had drawn the short straw
of lubing up a violin
there on my palm. The sun
wasn’t you at the window
nor the chainsaw clearing
its throat at the edge
of hearing. The fly poring over
the miserable tract of stoicism
which was my palm was you
trying to be done with it
trying to rub it all off its forearms
like a surgeon over a slaughtered basin
but only after the other hand
had smacked the life out of it.