Auntie’s Curse Poem by Gert Strydom

She said to me, now in her old age
to stay away from the dogs and cats,
as if they were spiders, snakes and bats

being scared
that I would catch
something from them

like lice or ticks or fleas
or maybe some hidden disease
and although I had used frontline on them,
had dusted them with karbadust,
had sprayed shoo-fly on their heads and necks

she wished that I would catch lice from them,
or the illness which they were carrying
like a member of the flat earth society,
still believing in vain
as if cats and dogs infected with
the one or other pest
were going to rain down
out of the sky
and infect every one

and then she bought some expensive shampoo,
bathed, washed her head
five times a day
to kill the pests
which she believed
was now crawling over her
and was very angry at me
for not comprehending
life exactly as she did.