A Gnat Died on my Lips

A Gnat Died on my Lips

He fell into the trap like sticky ink.
He was not blind, just vaguely unaware.
He stuck like morning in the dewy air,
damp and dying on my soft-stilled lips.
The silence of last petty, wide-eyed winks.

He flew by in short, sweet bursts of breath
into the wedges of my parted lips.
He died like dark in curled and winding drips,
a dot of black relinquished to his fate.
There is no other death in life but death.

Surely there must have been some sort of sound.
What is this quiet world so often caught?
The dew drops dry as softly as they fought.
I am not blind, just vaguely unaware,
and I spit him forth onto the spattered ground.