Bestiary: Tick
From a prompt by Aimee Nezhukumatathil.
because you fill the staid eastern woods with peril
parachuting down onto my bared unsuspecting neck
attaching yourself to my calves when
I think I’ve only had a brush with Solomon’s seal
crawling into my nooks so gently
I never notice your prowling
because you bite me so tenderly that I don’t even register
my warm blood shunting into
your stiff brown accordion abdomen
because with every suck there’s the possibility
that a virulent part of you
will wend its way back to me
I should consider being cautious
but because you dwell out there in the wilds
in the forests and the grasslands
along the singletrack and the bluestem
in the waist-high green of off-the-beaten-path
I can’t help but risk another run-in:
the cost of doing business, as they say
you should consider being cautious
because although I’ll not put a match to you
(too dangerous for both of us)
I will pluck you out with tweezers
your flat/fat abdomen squeezed tight in the metal
then dump you in the empty peanut butter jar
where you may circle for days until the oxygen’s all expended –
my insurance in case I fall ill later
and your corpse requires testing
so think twice before you sink those greedy mandibles
into my soft pink flesh
