"I heard a fly buzz-when I died" is structured in four four-line stanzas, or quatrains. This is characteristic of Dickinson's poetry and corresponds to the ballad stanza structure (based on an ABCB rhyme scheme and an alternating iambic tetrameter and trimeter). The first three lines of each stanza begin with a capital letter; the last line ends with a full stop (period). A fly "buzzing when I died" could be interpreted as an insect noise while my dead body was in state before burial or it could simply mean that the fly was there when I died.