Songs About Houseflies

Our love falls into the soup
like the offspring
of cigarette

and disbelief.
Outside, the roosters

spoil the wild violets.

I start thinking of my hands
as sticky trash

that my shirt is trying to throw away.

Workers gather in the orchard
to sing songs about houseflies.

What rises amid the heat
they throw off

glows, and fades.

____

Glen Armstrong holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and teaches writing at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. He edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters and has a forthcoming book of prose poems: Invisible Histories. His work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Conduit, and Cream City Review.