I cannot find the remote.
A fly is pestering my gaze.
No use in catching it. I'm caught
myself. I'm sheltering in place.
So let its movement be preserved,
its shadow mirrored on the wall.
Besides, my time is better served
by watching it than none at all.
Perhaps the fly is just the thing
to break monotony and distort,
with its translucent airy wings,
the stillness of this nature morte.
Perhaps the tone of time itself
is coded in the monotone
buzz of those wings as they propel
its tiny frame around my home.
Perhaps the housefly can sense
the passing days, as you and I
cannot, as everything's condensed
and brimming for the housefly
whose lifespan is, - as I have read, -
a couple weeks, a month at most,
and as its stopwatch has been set,
it cannot spare a moment lost.
A whole new mantra for mankind -
a new religion solely based
on all the time a man can find
if he eliminates its waste.
Yet, here I am. The couch is cold.
And I can't bring myself to rise
to grab the blanket. Truth be told,
it's not too bad, - this world comprised
of tangibles - of furnishings
that know their owner as he knows
his place among them, of the things
that I have gathered and kept close.
This quarantine, this isolation
has shrunk the landscape and the dust
resulting from this transformation
has caused my eyes to readjust.
My baby boy is in his crib,
my wife and daughter in the room
adjacent. My perspective, stripped
of any white-noise, has assumed
its rightful place, recalibrated.
The fly is circling, aloft.
It's peaceful here. We're isolated.
It's April 10th. I'm signing off.