Select Insects

It’s like there are select insects
who know I’m decaying inside.
One landed on my arm
and waited there on my skin
for what seemed like
a season. I felt a change
in the weather.  I tried 
to memorize its shape
so I could tell anyone
who might come 
how it came and I got colder
and how it was a little square
like a chitinous ice cube
and a little gray 
like a piece of old bark or flesh,
but that’s all I could say — 
something like a piece of death itself
sat down on my skin to wait
and I did not have the words
to explain that insect to anyone
who might have come by. 
It was a bit of comfort, in fact,
to have to explain something
yet not have words for it,
to sit with it upon me
and know it wanted death from me
and not want to offer it up,
to resist without trying
to create words for that resistance.
I am not worthy of this moment,
I said; it just sat there
and perhaps I was resistant in that,
but one way or another
I was alone with the insect Death
and this time, at least,
we together chose without speaking
to let this passage wait for another time
while the flies buzzed beyond the screen
and something indistinct crossed the far floor.