04/27/2024
Border Guards
Blacklys are unworthy of words
Hovering swarms they make as spring warms They cannot keep up with one who moves Quickly through their woods.
Swift Corwin
But stop for an instant and they Descend like border guards
On a traveler without a pass Sucking stings meet the target victim Like the bullets from tiny guns
Arms ablaze with welts, so too they fire at eyes, Ankles and all the other exposed skin
Toward summer the blackflys leave
To a place about which maybe the entomologists dream
Is it the mosquito's operatic soprano they can't stand? Or, do they just get tired of being border guards
In their impoverished country, where the government has stopped their pay?