Opportunists

What keeps flies from
nesting in my flesh?
Do they wait nearby, should
Mors dispatch?
How do they know
that I’m just asleep?
To them, does death
not look like this?

When that hour
overtakes me—
the smell of something
not alive will
waft by scores of
hungry vermin.
Defenseless, I
seem to sleep.

Insulted nevermore by this, nor
by the dirt thrown on my face; let
greedy maggots take their fill.
When flies are born,
the beetles come.