Five summer days, five summer nights,
The ignorant, loutish, giddy blue-fly
Hung without motion on the cling peach,
Humming occasionally: “O my love, my fair one!”
As in the Canticles.

Magnified one thousand times, the insect
Looks farsically human; laugh if you will!
Bald head, stage-fiery wings, bleary eyes,
A caved-in chest, hairy black mandibles,
Long spindly thighs.

The crime was detected on the sixth day.
What then could be said or done? By anyone?
It would have been vindictive, mean and what-not
To swat that fly for being a blue-fly,
For debauch of a peach.

Is it fair, either, to bring a microscope
To bear on the case, even in search of truth?
Nature, doubtless, has some compelling cause
To glut the carriers of her epidemics –
Nor did the peach complain.