At least these fruit flies,
eyes redder than these Anjou pears
they apparently favor, are benign,

for they persist in sometime soft swarms,

slow as blimps stuffed of helium
but difficult in the end to bring
to land and nether

so clear the night’s home air
interrupted by their squadron flicker
across the searchlight of television

and then return to the dark
and indolent disappearance

to settle on wine-bottle lip
and seasoned-brown banana skin
for the sleeping until the search

for the innocuous begins anew
in the light rising on its own easy hour.