Bluebottle

Funeral directors of blow flies arrive,

always punctual to manage the dead,

compound eyes range a corpse

with an efficient fervour,

appropiate the decay required 

to feed and lay their gentles,

and despite their necessity,

their indisputable place 

in the order of things - 

we are disgusted -

death is not a nursery for the young. 

Unashamedly, they wear their colours

with pride, electric blue and green,

polished to a mirrored sheen,

bristled, claw-toed, filigree-winged:

beautiful, in fact, and yet,

the buzz - the noise of corruption,

the bold pronouncement of the presence

of the proximity of death;

mortality hovers, frightens,

darts to take flight from my swat.
 

Written for National Insect Week and poetry challenge organised by @pauldragonwolf1 on Twitter https://thewombwellrainbow.com/ Today's challenge was to write a poem about flies. My picture is from pixabay, but also on Twitter, a painting from here: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Osias_Beert_-_Flowers_in_a_German_tigerware_vase,_with_a_bluebottle_fly_and_a_Red_Admiral_butterfly,_on_a_ledge.jpeg