Until the Full Moon Has Its Say

Mosquitoes

28 Mosquitoes Mosquitoes have evolved. They used to fly up, hairy, a half inch long. They’d circle once or twice, buzzing, looking for the ripest spot to draw my blood. I’d listen, figure out where that sucker might be digging in, and swat. Blood on my collar. That was forty years ago. Now they’re small, they don’t take risks, don’t buzz, don’t circle. From over in some bush, they pick their strip of neck or ankle and go straight for it. First thing, you know, you’re itching. You might swat one now and then, but they hardly seem worth the trouble, tiny sharpshooters zinging in to suck a drop or two and disappear. Mosquitoes are what I study lately, not John Donne, not Whitehead’s metaphysics, no rocky outcrop on the Isle of Crete, no newborn student stanzas almost making sense. Instead, the six-legged wildlife in these woods, a door to evolution honing all its creatures down. ...