The Iowa Review
Volume 35
Issue 1 Spring
2005
On Not Hurting a Fly: A Memorial
Lia Purpura
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Purpura, Lia. "On Not Hurting a Fly: A Memorial." The Iowa Review 35.1 (2005): 52-58. Web.
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Article 41
LIA PURPURA
On Not Hurting a Fly: A Memorial
..
.fragments of cloth, bits of cotton, lumps of earth, records of speech,
pieces of wood and iron,phials of odors, plates of food and excrement...
a piece of the body torn out by the root might be more to the point.
?James
Agee
I'd like to look at the issue seriously, since I've got a fly here and it's
it's really a horse fly
past being hurt; since, now that I'm looking,
I smacked against the window weeks
ago. A horse fly, which means
I've stopped to ask questions. A horse fly, making
the scene specific,
just right for this discussion.
I cleared it away? Like an old hurt or slight,
Why haven't
softened and darkened,
curled in upon itself. Small presence
a
sun. Sometimes
in
I'm working
of
of
when
spot
sight,
edge
it has
at the
these
I'll glance down at my watch
and see only
deeply working,
as
worn
as
if
the
smooth
and
blank
river stones,
numbers,
ciphers,
as much to do with it as the grainy
to do with time?or
had nothing
days,
now. I go back to work,
distant, unreadable
unmarked.
head bent, caught up in the moment,
In the past few weeks
I've overlooked
the fly as if it, too, were a
a
or
a
in
nick
the
sill,
small, indigenous
cipher,
dropped
thing: an
a
in
to
I've
brush.
seed pod half-hidden
acorn,
grown accustomed
whorls
in this desk,
it, just off to the side, bent into the shape of a comma,
on.
brief pause before continuing
Here
would
half-stasis,
are asked what they
is a joke: a rabbi, a priest and a minister
to
at
hear
their
funerals.
The
priest hopes to learn he
hope
a spiritual leader of great comfort to his parishioners;
the min
ister hopes itmight be said that he inspired many to a life of service
was
and godliness. The rabbi when
I think I saw him move!"
asked, hopes
someone
will
say "Hey,
wait!
out of the corner of my eye, I think I see the fly move.
Sometimes,
I startle first
Even after so many weeks.
Because
its body remains,
later. Because
the fly has grown porous by now,
and ask questions
52
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and brittle, the softest breeze sifts its papery wings. The air, passing
like a gaze, enlivens,
inhabits, suggests.
This summer Imet someone who kept a jar of dead flies on his
he found one he put it in; it took only a month
porch. Whenever
over
or so to fill the jar completely
childhood
grew
frightening
up. He's a remarkable writer whose
ever more
bizarre as he got older,
to
do with the flies. He simply likes
this has anything
though I doubt
Iwant to emphasize
clean, uncluttered
surroundings.
again that he
But there
doesn't kill the flies and isn't trying to build a collection.
and ready for easy observa
they were on the little table, contained
a place to keep things-of-a-kind,
tion, the jarmerely organizational,
as he kept papers filed, books neatly stacked. By mid-summer
when
to compact,
the jar was full, the bodies were beginning
the whole
like a snarl of hair. I wondered
what
the effect of a
settling
of
of
would
the
lace
their
be,
wings
dragonflies
jar
complicating
the scene, making
the ravaging more useless
still. Why
crush, even
in death, the dragonfly
that eats mosquitoes,
and
gnats and moths
mass
not bite us? Whose
head is nearly covered with eyes, whose
are
as
times a
sheer,
wings
fragile as tatting, and beat a hundred
second. Whose
cobalt?electric
colors
body is emerald, periwinkle,
of a falling sky.
too, is beautiful:
(Though of course the bumblebee,
ample and
furred. And cicadas are airborne,
And
spectra.
humming
aphids
does
weigh
not even a breath
sun...
and potato
beetles
outshine
in
anthracite
)
this before: war
Have
you heard
one person dies
That at last count
War Memorial
there were
inWashington
does
not kill thousands
of people;
of times?
thousands
59,939 names
D.C.?
engraved
in the Vietnam
I've always been puzzled by the phrase "she wouldn't
hurt a fly." It
never minds
the effort required to actually swat a fly, and moreover,
a wee, small thing to which no harm should come.
the fly becomes
Speaking
the words,
one
suspends
one's
feelings
about
pest. Meaning
droning,
disease-carrying,
nerve-rattling
The fly stands in for "a thing not to be hurt," corresponds
to our perception.
the fly?a
fractures.
not at all
53
That
is, we
it.
disembody
a friend who
swat even mosquitoes,
though he, too,
has simply run out
gets bitten. It's as if his capacity for annoyance
or perhaps he has run it out of his body. He focuses a placid eye on
exists in quiet brotherhood
the world,
with all things and so mos
than the bitter
quitoes don't distract him from his work any more
I have
cold of winter
won't
and heat
of summer
he works
of jobs. He drives a pickup truck all over
a chipmunk he hit and killed on the road.
kinds
And
the ani
be; because
regret would
a
in
its
for
flies
the
heat.
flattened,
completely
pool
body
I will never tell him I saw the eyes aligned on a single
Because
like a zipper into
open and grains of teeth pressed
plane, the mouth
the earth. And for the time it takes to see the things in front of me.
so, because
of what
through, doing all
town. Once I found
his
mal was
For the whorls
in the table
rings and years,
the sill:
erasures
I work
on,
and grime?I
for the nicks
will
and gouges,
look again at the fly on
Its three-part body. Its pair of wings
and sets of legs?six,
haired
to
center
in
Its
that
end
claws?attached
the
shovel
segment.
legs
like mouthparts.
Its hard outer covering. A black that, back-lit at
the end of the day, is flecked with furred gold. Enormous, multiple
the size of its head. (I used a magnifying
glass.) The
eyes-in-a-grid,
its eyes.
hair-like antennae between
I am following
the body back to itself. The body as guide, as map
to trace: from mouthpart
to head, upsloping
to wings, my looking
over the joints and segments,
moves moebus-like
the sharp parts,
the soft transparencies.
The wings
askew. The missing
leg.
And though I failed to see it at first,
I let it wait
and
thanks now
it waited:
to the body, its
matter.
dependable
constancy. Though
to the wings, which are gently veined like a fine pen draw
Thanks
to the bead of its head, the bristles and
ing of tributaries. Thanks
return to
faceted eyes like velvet. Thanks to the body for permitting
what
I once knew
urgently:
her body is mine. 1972. I saw the burning
girl,
knew
and
and
motionless,
running, running
crying
Vietnam.
54
stilled, on tv,
that was me in
as I ran to the kitchen
I knew
snaps
couldn't
on my
and pressed my face to the pearly
she washed
the dishes,
and I
on tv. The flames were
burning
as
mother's
jeans
I was
speak, I knew
behind me, were black and white
and Iwas
stilled
torn off, and it was snowing
ning, my
summer and Iwas breathless
and sweating.
clothes
That was Kim Phuc and we were
I'm following
At
the Vietnam
almost
and
on tv
Iwas
though
run
it was
9 years old.
the body.
War Memorial
my finger traces, from my home
That stands for his body. (Jewish,
Married, I look up. Casualty Type: Hostile, Gun, Small Arms Fire, Ground
I loop around the letters...
I was
three when
he was
Casualty.)
I was four when Robert George Hufschmid,
killed.
also from my
town: Howard
Martin
Gerstel.
town, Married, Catholic, died: Hostile, Artillery Rocket, Mortar, Ground
in the Peace Corps instead, raising
Casualty. Four when my uncle,
in southern
I am asking
chickens
India, nearly died of measles.
him about the year, exactly, because my son is four now. Because
is still of my body, and we go on like this, daily, my arms
the smallness he makes of himself when he curls in my
containing
arms
around him, bracketing
the ribs and
him, enclosing
lap. My
his body
the taut, delicate skin between
on like this always.
"It goes
on,"
I say,
"forever,"
them. Though
when
I first
see
I know
it will
the wall.
But
not go
it's
not
forever and I am annoyed at my own hyperbole.
It's only enormous,
a cut, polished
that
earth
back.
holds
the
wall starts in the
The
edge
an
narrows
reaches
and
back
like an
down, something
apex
ground,
on
we
our
are
book
earth.
of
As
the
bodies
open
pass,
propped
belly
case
in the black, buffed surface. It looks like a printer's
over
as
so
names.
kicked
and
the
blurs
reset,
wild,
gone
eye
many
There are the ancient ones: Ham. Abel. Isaiah. Behind the memo
reflected
reach with their colors; it's a bright November
rial, maples
day. The
names rise above our heads as we walk down, down imperceptibly,
as if into a tomb. Visitors
rub the names onto paper the conces
sion guys give out for free. Circle the names with their fingers and
hands, sit and stare and tell their stories. Tell their kids "Hal com
D company." Israel. Samuel. And as you ascend, the names
a close at the triangle's far point. The names of the dead
to
trickle
are the names of the living and in that way, too, go on: Herrera, my
manded
55
in California.
Figueroa, my friend in New York. Carotenuto,
Boudreau, my old art teacher. Schwartzkopf.
Kennedy.
friend
my student,
Abraham.
Jeremiah.
the phone
People take pictures of everything:
towns and
names'
home
the
their
locations,
map
are
too:
Therein
the places of my life,
death-dates.
Hewlett, Oberlin,
It takes me no time to find my birthday, and
Iowa City, Baltimore.
it is no one's death day.
of
book-sized
I picked up says "By virtue of its design,
The pamphlet
rial puts a human face on a divisive conflict."
there are no faces here
But
we
at all. Or
into mind.
conjure back
as metaphor,
war, "conflict"
outlines
Except
come
stories
Yes,
Stories
kindle
the memo
the faces are fleet, sheerest
faces. Singular faces.
Private
does not wear
a face.
out.
forth a moment.
But that's not
the body.
are the figurative women,
in the Women's
bronzed,
are
bodies. They
Vietnam Memorial,
larger than life, in the posture
of tending. Pained by the soldiers in their arms, dying. They lean like
italics into the virtues they mean to portray: bravery, duty, compassion.
And
neither
But that's not
Nor
burn
the body.
rising out of the flames of the Katyn Memorial
at President
In Baltimore,
Street and Aliceanna,
like stepstools,
their gilded forms
soldiers climb flames
do the bodies
like bodies.
the Polish
lofted, on righteousness,
up. The fire itself is sturdy and trusted; it
in memory,"
becomes
the mens'
legs and thus they are "enduring
to be the spirit unbroken. The spirit rising.
and mean
But this is not
And
the body in flames.
in the Tomb of the Unknown
Soldier,
even
the bones
them
in for the whole?
the body. Are a portion
standing
meant
to
be
Michael
shot
down in An Loc
J. Blassie,
synecdoche?not
dna
now
us.
test
in 1972. Though
it is he, the
of
tells
The medal
honor, though it hung over him for fourteen years, does not, it was
selves
are not
ruled, belong to him. He lent his body to an idea.
follow
"We really believe
the medal
should
Captain
But
remain:
Patricia
Blassie
it can't.
It must
clean. Rapturous.
In perpetual
56
said
Michael,"
of the Air Force, his sister.
to attach to a body. Must
not be allowed
anonymity.
Dignified.
in The Disasters
of Goya's
etchings
of War are amaz
More."
#22?"All
and
Same Thing
This
#23?"The
ingly simple.
Elsewhere."
isWorse." And here, I stop. Soldiers rest in
#37?"This
The
titles
a grove of trees, but here, impaled on a jagged stump, as partial and
perfect as any Greek statue: his body, his shapely calf, the shadings
of thigh and muscled
back and, filling the space where his forearm
was hacked, a darkness
in the background
flowering.
I did not know
a man
could grow from a tree, until
I saw precisely
how.
the ways, precisely, a neck goes taut with fear, until
Guernica. Did not know a mouth,
uptilted as simply as a cup, could
fill so easily with black cries, or the many ways
animals
could
scream. That growing from a neck, a leg can arc around and pierce
so much upon escape it drags along the
the neck; a kneecap weigh
I did not know
floor, or breasts go sharp. That
a sword a twisted flower might
triangles spurt. That
grow like a mangled
from the hilt of
fist.
at a
for whistling
1954. Emmett Till, 14, is murdered
Mississippi.
in a store, his body thrown into the Tallahatchie River.
white woman
"All beating was concentrated
around his head" said his mother,
Till Mobley, describing
itwas returned to her
the body when
in its coffin. "It looked as if they had taken a nut-picker
and picked
to his cheek, his
the left eye out. The right eye was about mid-way
nose looked like they had taken a meat chopper and just chopped
Mamie
along the bridge of the nose. Where
his neck, the weight of it had choked
a human tongue was so big."
His nickname was Bobo.
face was
His
A
they tied that gin fan around
his tongue out. I did not know
sand
Mushrooms
I was
strip mined. A ditchful of flux. A pile of slag.
sliding. A plate of meat. Mushrooms
sprouting.
in a field of rain.
dune
not yet born
at the time,
so I looked
up
the face
Magazine.
At the funeral, the coffin was kept open. His mother
"wanted the world to see what they did to my boy."
DaVinci
"sweet
said
in Jet
she
to draw
the human
flayed
body to better understand,
of limbs." "Do
fleshiness
with simple folds and roundness
57
not"
he
of your figures
said, "make all the muscles
are
not
must
in
exercise
limbs which
be drawn without
And if you do otherwise,
play of muscles.
nuts
of
rather
than a human figure."
bag
you will
apparent...
showing the
have imitated a
I did not know muscles
in bands from chest to shoulder,
wrapped
into the upper arm and folded under. That below the sinews
and tendons, muscles moved
like the staves of a basket across the
tucked
to see how autopsies
are done, I did not know
Iwent
and pale the stomach was, that the lungs are not light
turned over, the two-lobed
flop like fins when
right one
chest. Until
how
small
but will
and the three-lobed
left. That intercostal veins thread through the
like perfectly basted hems. The epiglottis
like the lip
purses
of a pitcher and when
the pituitary gland is lifted free of the brain
it pops out with a neat little sound.
chest
Fat is so yellow.
are not blue but a soft, pearly
Veins
can happen
A memorial
As
Itwas
anywhere.
at a friend's
farm. Iwas walking
through the
in early fall, after the last hay was cut, when
curled in a grassy depression
just before a stand
it did, just recently,
stubble
yellow-brown
I saw a deer.
gray.
of trees. The deer was
so small that I startled, thinking itwas sleep
a
Imoved
little nest. But when
toward it, it didn't stir and I
ing in
saw near the jaw a quarter-sized
hole. The body was perfect except
for the hole, which was terribly precise. The hole was deep, and the
slipped in runnels all over but dried black at the rim.
I had never seen a deer that close. So I stayed.
I circled around. On one side the body was perfect,
but then
on the other, when
I crossed over, there was the hole come upon
in.
like disbelief,
the perfect
through,
collapsed
jawbone pierced
blood
The
hadn't
hole
like a cave.
was?I
looking
58
Like
The darkness
mud-filled.
couldn't
in.
tell what.
a cup. Like
an ear, half-drowned
and
seeping pink. The pink underneath
So I stayed with
the body. So I kept
there