the afterlife for gnats 

in the kitchen we fill a cup 
with apple cider vinegar to catch gnats. 
i sit by the trap to watch 
each speck struggle in light amber liquid.
i can't pin point where the gnats are coming from.
i inspect all my fruit: the bananas still greenish
around their foreheads, the acorn squash thick & sturdy,
the single peach's skin not yet soft to the touch.
i start to think of the gnats as ghosts & 
i imagine them entering through the walls--
their tiny bodies pressing themselves into 
this world. i tell the gnats this apartment
is important to me, you have to understand.
by which i mean this apartment is where i live
& i won't be haunted again. maybe then they roll
like periods, like endings, from beneath the front door.
maybe they mean no harm-- just want company
like all ghosts do. i tell the gnats i have
been a ghost just several days ago & that
i will be a ghost again. the gnats go on 
lapping up the vinegar. what sounds does it make
in their mouths? a whole mouth fit into 
a dot. they must not eat very much. no matter
how many die in the vinegar they keep coming back.
in moments of anger i slap them from the air 
& wipe their red splotch off on my thigh--
smash their endings on my wall 
their ghosts returning to somewhere 
in the ceiling.
maybe the afterlife for flies 
is in my house.
i wonder how i could 
make them more comfortable.
doesn't everyone deserve that?
i could fill the room with dying fruit 
or maybe just keep each trash bag open 
in the living room. a circus of smell.
a part of me knows this is wrong that these
are gnats-- that it is their purpose 
to take three bites then vanish 
but i want to be a good host.
i know what's it's like to have a small skull.
to be easily vanished.
to be a type of punctuation.
to own a see through abdomen. 
look at the organs-- 
only enough red
to burst a moment.