“I heard a Fly Buzz — When I died” is a narrative poem broken into four quatrains (a stanza made of four lines) that takes the reader through the speaker’s progressing death and increasing disconnect from knowledge and self-autonomy.

The poem begins using a simple past tense, declarative sentence in the indicative grammatical mood—”I heard a Fly Buzz — When I died” (Line 1). The use of a declarative sentence form and the indicative mood sets the speaker hearing a fly at the time of her death as hard fact. The simple past tense of “heard” gives the statement both a definitive timeframe (“when I died”) and a sense of closure of the actions (Line 1). The subject detects the direct object as the direct object acts. This grammatical construction makes the reader trust the speaker to possess objectivity and clarity about her death. Dickinson supports the image of a level-headed speaker with the poem’s form. The four lines and four stanzas create the illusion of balance, steadiness, and preparedness.

Dickinson continues using the indicative mood through the following 15 lines as she presents the speaker’s observations about the speaker’s dying room and mourners.