Ode to a Mosquito

Adapted from Emily Dickinson’s classic poem, written on behalf of the mosquito plague of 2010

I heard a fly buzz when it died
The stillness of his wing
was like the melodious ringtone
of a phone that never rings.

I willed my hand, to slap away
The next fly that came near
as it looked for fleshy places
with its mouth shaped like a spear.

With dull, nauseating buzz,
Between his fate and me;
And then his body failed to fill, and then
he could not see.