A Little Apartment Complex

Two little black flies are perched on the
edge of the ceiling soffit. I’ve seen
them passing before the big sliding glass
door for several days now,
dark little fluttering dots
in the day light shining in,
ruining my view of the sunny commotion
of the parking lot outside.

A few times
I have gotten up and gone to the
window with a magazine or piece
of heavy mail and stood there patiently
behind half closed blinds,
awaiting
an unwise flight,
and then
to swing wildly stirring up
desperate rushes of air —
but to no satisfying microscopic snap
when the little body
makes contact with the
hard and fast paper.

Today too
I stood up but more resolutely,
with a book — the two perched there
upside down on the ceiling soffit,
enjoying each other’s company, I suppose,
hashing out the details of a love making perhaps.
But I had had enough of these little insects
ruining my view of the sunny bustling parking lot.

I killed one of them.
It vanished out of the air in front of the book.
The other went off toward a window in the other room.
There were two and now there is one.
I do not know if the one remaining will feel the lose.
Probably not, I suppose. But somehow I do.
It feels a little pathetic and it feels a little righteous —
these very small matters of life and death
in my little apartment complex.