Our
House
To L.W.
By Rebecca Schmidt
Flies
collect in the windows often.
It's possible a nest is someplace
in the eaves, or upstairs. I don't
go up there much, on account of my legs.
Do flies make nests, or do they just lay their eggs?
A question I hadn't wondered till now,
because
no matter what, they collect in the windows,
blue-bottle flies, huge eyeballs, fast things, and
I'm reminded of Wittgenstein: to solve a problem,
he said, one must follow one's footsteps,
back track, always go back to the place things started.
Like
them, we're confused often.
It can find its way in, but due to stupidity,
forgetfulness, regret, confusion-what?
Can't seem to realize that the way out
is precisely the way it came in the first place.
No mystery in that.
No
tragedy, either. But I'll tell you what:
at first when we got this house, I said to my wife,
these flies are here for me! They're like little vultures,
smelling death, rot, a new life and all its possibility,
they don't so much as buzz but hover, they hover
like buzzards and wait for me to keel over.
Now
spring's come again. I didn't
think I'd see another spring, but in fact
neither do little girls run over by cars
think they'll ever miss a good bloom,
and I've started to like these flies.
I go to the window and look at one.
After all, stupid it may be, it wants what all of us want:
to leave the house once in a while, to be outside,
to fly like we know we can, to go back, ever back,
to how things used to be. Not a regression, of course, but some
familiarity.