In the early snow
Someday soon you will forget my name, forget
that time we slept till three, waking only
to the sound of a fly, trapped in your window,
its papery wings beating on the dirty glass,
the buzzing soon drowned out by the neighbor
playing techno music, pulsing hard against
the quaking too-thin plywood walls. You’ll forget
staggering home in early October snow,
at six in the morning, slipping on ice
and rotting yellow leaves, the light pollution
cannot hide the stars tonight, you said, waving
one bony arm across the sky. Someday, soon,
I’ll be that fly, circling around, watching
the stoop in your back grow, your narrow shoulders
shaking in some distant December.
And with my long antennae I will feel
your skin roughening, tawny hair thinning
like the threads of a woolen blanket, washed
one too many times in harsh soap, its fibers
unraveling, bleached like broken seashells lying
half-buried in some silent ocean floor.