Flypapers At Auntie's House. Poem by Terry Collett

Flypapers hung in the kitchen
Of Auntie’s house. Death traps
For flies that buzzed at their ends
Or buzzed noisily from surface
To surface unaware the brown
Sticky strips were there to trap.
You stared at the long brown strips
Covered in flies, some buzzed fruitlessly,
Others were quiet and still, having
Given up the will to buzz or make noise
Just hanging there black corpses on
Brown paper, a graveyard swaying in
The draught from the wide open door
To buzz and fly and irritate no more.