A black fly in midwinter
has burgled the warm air of the kitchen.
It struggles for height,
a brittle-winged air-bender
reaching for plateaus,
higher footstools,
grasping for spice shelves
or the slope of a slick cooker hood.
The splutter
of an over-revved engine,
the bolted clicking of insectivore plates.
Up it lifts again
turning like a wounded helicopter
only to crash-land
on a dish of cooling porridge.
Mired, it scoops gravity out
from a clogged exoskeleton
staggers to a porcelain edge.
Heavy airfoils battle a steam laden air.
Its weight now cannot be sustained.
It falls to the hard kitchen floor
spins disorientated on its back.
A dervish dance.
Sibilant thunder-claps
of a now dismantled buzzing.
Will it try again
to lift its wreckage?
Between the paused silence
of a ticking wall-clock
a burnt-out fuselage trembles.
Nothing disembarks.
Swarm robots sing your dreams of snow angels.
They flutter in formation, flinging up flakes.
Engineered wings whispered together:
"Rise from the pack ice, wait for my kisses
of polymers and airfoils and programs - I'm pining to play with
persistence of vision and time...in time.
Watch what I've wished for rise from the powder in time...
Be mine... in time..."
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