Itch And Itch Again Poem by Linda Hepner

I read a poem. In it
Flea speaks like a poet.

In my poem
Bedbug spoke.
It waited till the couple
in the motel
slept
and then it crept
out of the crevasses between its sheets
and poked
first him, then her, then him again
and sucked then scuttled
back into minute creases
in its sheets
and slept, digesting
delectable, nutritious
blood.

The couple slept too. Then they woke
and scratched and fought.

I thought
that couple had an offspring on that night.
Their mingled blood inside the tiny bedbug
like an ancestor of both,
bearing seeds of future species,
would find another host one night
and just like butterflies and bees which propogate
while feeding, accidentally, or by design,
and give us oxygen and happiness,
would accidentally or by design
leave traces of the mingled, married exons
in the future of two other lovers
mating in some motel, near or far,
joining humankind to otherkind,
like me, like you, like swans, like hares,
like Mr. Bedbug.


Triggered by 'Itch (The Flea's Retort) ' a poem by Alan Jenkins in New Yorker Magazine, October 24,2016
which I read in the Dentist's Office! Exons are contained in DNA.