i remember the blue housefly

bumping into the window again and again

in the bed in the room where the help once slept

above the garage

trying to read and stopping to watch

the blue housefly

and feeling the room

rumbling with the engine

of dad's idling blue buick centurion

vapors clouding around me thinking

this is how it was written somewhere

or would be 

if anyone happened to see

but there was only the fly and dad and me

and it was already in the cloud 

years later when he left the car and the garage

and the house and the wife and his body

i feel the rumbling through the feet of the bed

and the box springs and the mattress

and i hear the head of the blue housefly

ring against the glass 

why was it i could not release the fly? was the window painted shut?

no one responded.