Flypaper (poem)

Most people of a certain age remember the days before fly spray in cans.  There used to be to weapons used to combat flies, a fly swatter and flypaper.  You can still buy those sticky strips, but oh the trouble they can cause.

Flypaper

You know how things can happen
To ring a memory back?
It happened to me recently
In that old garden shack.

I'd gone to get a garden rake
To clean up all the weeds
I'd pulled in getting ready
For the planting of my seeds.

The rake stood in a corner
Among the other tools.
I took a step to grab it
And felt the biggest fool.

I wanted to get on with it,
Moved at a fervent pace.
Well that strip of sticky paper
Hit me smack dab in the face.

I grabbed it with my free hand
And pulled it from my nose,
So intent on being free of it,
I didn't see the hose.

The rake was in my other hand.
I tried to break my fall.
I only knocked the sprinkler down
From its place on the wall.

So there I was in quite a fix,
Both tools and I askew,
And somehow that old flypaper
Was sticking to my shoe.

Sprawled there on that wooden floor
I prayed I'd not be seen.
You see it happened once before
Back when I was thirteen.

Audrey Hauser -2005