Mosquitoes Emerge
Mosquitoes emerge
a few minutes earlier
each night.
Promptly at dusk
on the cusp of darkness,
when a chill descends
and the cleansing wind
has died.
They are a hive of sound
an angry swarm,
fingernails, on a chalkboard.
So the world seems filled
with predatory insects,
heat-seeking, blood-thirsty bugs.
They play the odds,
overwhelming numbers
insuring
the lucky ones survive.
For most, though
life is a lottery ticket, lost
a miserly slot machine.
Only females bite;
the males are frail, and slight
— briefly used
then discarded.
She has navigated precisely
into my ear,
persecuting me
like a buzz-saw gone berserk.
And turned me into a fool,
slapping my head
hard.
Heavy with blood
she lumbers off,
loosing altitude
on a zigzag route
to her final destination.
Primed to reproduce
more annoying mosquitoes.
A vast and empty forest
full of famished bugs
desperate for a meal of blood;
which is highly unlikely
in a brief mosquito life.
Or at least until I appeared —
the only warm-blooded mammal
for miles.
I wrote recently that I think I needed a break from poetry, since I feared I was just turning out different versions of the same poem. The ending here seems to confirm that: as you may have noticed, I’ve plagiarized my recent hitch-hiking poem, ending this one with exactly the same line. Trouble is, it works so well here I can’t think of anything else!
On the other hand, I doubt many of my poems – if any at all – will survive. So I suppose I might as well milk the “good” lines for all they’re worth!
