The Man Who Collected Flies

...was a former civil servant
hounded from his desk,
   mid-career.

The house, tucked behind a valley of ivy
falling back towards the sea,
hand-painted black to protect his fear,
was surrounded by thick gauze laced with glass,
and tore a child's hands.

From the safety of the wood we spied on his garden
said nothing lived there, nothing could grow
which could only mean one thing.

The ivy - a sign of darkness - twisted to clumps,
turned brown during the summer months, bled mucus
from its roots. The cruelness of his world
we said was spilling over - would spill
yet more - infecting earth like deep ink,
sinking into sea.

When the flies came we covered our eyes.
So great they cast a shadow across the fields
whirled like a giant fruit-ball through trees
before settling, each body a seed, onto
   the mouth of his patio -
plate-glass warriors armed with skeletal shields.

He embraced them with his calling
drew them towards his eyes, pursing each delicate head,
shouting, screaming, denouncing all
that was and had been
as if he knew we were there.

'These flies' he said
   'are yours.'