A Halo of Flies

A hundred generations of beetles

Live inside my chest

Tiny pincer mandibles shredding

My desiccated flesh

I

Twenty six nails line my box

I count them endlessly

My dry, dusty bones laying on

Their rusting sharp edges

I tried

A fungus grows on my foot

I stay perfectly still contemplating it

As its thin roots split open my bones

Pouring powder onto my floor

I tried, but

A maggot crawls into my ear

I feel it chewing and clawing

Soon it is joined by more of its kind

A homey little nest

I tried, but I

I spend ten generations of the insects

Trying to remember the scent of tulips

The taste of ice cream

The touch of lips to mine

I tried, but I can

I long to stretch my arms

To yawn without my jaw falling off

To break the cobwebs between my fingers

And to see, just to see

I tried, but I can not

The world has six tiny sides

And started to leak

The water trickles down my chest

Soaking into my floor

I tried, but I can not rest!

I can bare it no longer

The sound of rotten wood rending

Wet dirt pouring on my face

I am liberated!

The flies burst from my skull

Freed into the murky night

I am the first, but the others follow

Mounds of dirt exploding people

We walk from the grave yard

Our names long erased from our tombstones

We walk to the great bonfires

And to the dancers celebrating

A celebration, a joyous one

Our grandchildren and great-grand children

All the generations of our people celebrate

For tonight the zombi walks the Earth