bite of life

My brother is holed up in a motel on a bender, and I’m ripping the heads off of fleas with my bare fingers.
The devils hatched out while we were gone on a trip. I dosed the cats and sprinkled tide detergent before we left, but it only knocked them back a little bit.
Today I’ll dose the cats again—recharge my poison traps of feline flesh. He won’t respond to me. Lord I pray he lives through this.

Fleas be nimble. Fleas be quick. Fleas jump towards the needle prick. 

I pinch them off my skin, careful lest they jump away as I tear them apart with my thumbnails. They burst, my own blood spilling onto my fingertips.
He won’t respond to hardly anyone. A text back here. A quick call there. No one knows his room number.
And we pray and pray without ceasing that he will survive this stumble.

Fleas be nimble. Fleas be quick. Fleas jump towards the needle prick.

The medieval thought the flea to be God’s way of keeping man humble.
See, even kings could be pestered by their bite as they jumped and nipped with impunity.
Ah well, the plague cut us down to size a bit too, I suppose.
After all, Lord knows that sometimes it takes a bit of pruning to grow.