April is the crawlest month, bleeding …
Let us go then, you and I
like patients peroxided upon a table
(I should wear white flannel trousers
— twit, twit, twit —
to the beach)
“Hurry up please, it’s Lyme”
In the rooms women come and go,
talking of their target O
Shall I part my hair behind, do I dare …
Have I known them all, pinned
and wriggling?
Dr. Tiresias turns a blind eye:
“I had not thought deer had undone so many;
Hang it all, man, if I haven’t measured
out my life with coughing goons”
And yes, I’ve been told, I’ve been told
I shall wear my trousers rolled
with permethrin.
“Hurry up please, it’s Lyme”
Anaplasmosis. Babeseosis. Ehrlichiosis.
Doxy doxy doxy
Wayne K. Greenwell lives year-round in West Tisbury, and has had his one-act plays performed in New York City, Seattle, and Vineyard Haven.
