Leaving for St Helena

The chaff turns out to be
straw colored maggots of fruit flies
overflowing from the compost box;
Napoleon, the suicide attempt
when the opiate was past its sell date
(a tummy ache, no more)
the attempt past, I say, the morning audience
underway, had snuff all over
his blue cutaway. Strutting
was by that time all he knew.
There is only one spooky thing
and that is, for something dead to be alive:
I watched the chaff crawl for three heartbeats
before I understood. Just so, the snuff
would have crawled
on the simple blue
of his civilian suit: just so.