So it begs the question

Do we feel them like a skin beneath our skin, clotting our eyes
and curling our fingers and toes,

the quilted rice fields of hat-flecked green,

a curl of oil in a puddle
shining with the mottled colors
of a mood ring - snaking
like smoke
from the corners of your mouth - from between your teeth -
both in and out your nose,

an empty parking space,

the bruise on the palid underbelly
of my arm - a slow soft seepage of purple with
a halo of mucus yellow,

dying flies buzzing lazily as they struggle against
a frozen window pane until
she sucks them up into the gut of her vacuum cleaner

to die twitching in the dark?