My childhood bedroom
is a graveyard
for flies, the windowsill
their Arlington. Where
the carpet and wall
meet is a small town
plot, already too full
up. A rendition of Taps
slumps around the exposed
drywall Dad always meant
to paint. I’m six.
And I think the dust
and pollen that appear
in the afternoon blinds
are flies. I don’t know
them from Adam. They all came
from me. I shook them out
from the trench coat
pockets of my comforter,
their souls confettied
into this jar with me.
Now the jar’s heavy
with bodies, with the smell
of all our lungs,
with the faint knowledge
we all exist off this one breath.
Woody Woodger is a New England poet whose first chapbook, postcards from glasshouse drive, is currently forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. His other works have previously appeared in Barely South, Soundings East, and (b)OINK, among others, and are currently forthcoming in Descansos Anthology and Postcards Poems & Prose.