BEDBUG
I can talk
about him
because he is small.
A bedbug, at night
in bed—
he takes
from the body
a meal of blood.
The body lays there
as the bedbug
slips a small
proboscis in.
He sheds
his exoskeleton,
becomes
slightly larger.
I can still talk
about how he gropes
for another
bedbug to
inseminate
traumatically.
In the dark
creases, a bedbug
can orgasm anywhere.
And the other
teems with semen.
When I talk
about a bedbug
my heartbeat
gets rapid.
He grows larger
with each meal
until the bedbug
is the size of a man
with skin and a face
like a man's.
Far away, I open
a book; a bedbug
scurries out,
hits the ground.
I stomp.
I don't think
I can talk
about it. In the dark,
I make a sound.
A sucking in.
Isn't that talking?
To bring the situation
into myself
to hold it in
and not let it
out. Like
a meal of blood.
Can a bedbug
grow to such a large size?
And can I still call
him a bedbug?
And am I just imagining?
Can this really happen?
Or am I in a metaphor?
I convulse.
I hyperventilate.
I dig my fingers
into the sheets.
I feel a bedbug
and lose it.
In a classroom,
I explain
the power
of metaphor.
Even then
I try to talk
about him—
how when
I see only one
I know there are more.
TYPO
32
|