Sunday, May 1, 2022

Narrative Poem: Bedbugs.

 I threw down the newspaper and chortled.

"Lookit this!" I said to the wife.

"Bedbugs infest posh New York City Hotels."

She didn't respond.

"All those rich people, itching and scratching"

I said in high glee. "Serves 'em right!"

She came over to me, grim-faced.

"Lookit this!" she said bitterly.

She had a squashed bug in her hand.

"I found it in our bed!"

"Is it . . . ?" I began.

"Yeah" she said. "It's a bedbug!"

"Oy vey!" I moaned. "Bedbugs here in

Muscatine Iowa!"

Just then the doorbell rang.

It was a special delivery letter

addressed to me. I ripped it open.

"Hey!" I said. "My Uncle Harry passed

away and left us forty million dollars!"

"Let's get out of this bug-infested burg!"

urged the wife.

So we did.

We burned every stick of furniture and every

bit of clothing and started over.

We moved to the Big Apple. New York City.

We bought a mansion on Fifth Avenue.

We had a Swedish mattress so expensive that

three security guards escorted it up into our

bedroom.

And it had bedbugs!

They bit us until we were scratching

our welts and bleeding on the expensive

furniture. Made of teakwood, most of it.

So we moved out. Sold the place at a loss.

Went to San Francisco. Found a townhouse

on a hill painted in pastels. 

Our new mattress was made of magnetic

fiberglass -- guaranteed to kill any and all

vermin.

But then CNN ran a series of reports saying

that magnetic fiberglass causes cancer.

And attracts bedbugs. 

We had the townhouse demolished.

We fled to Canberra in Australia to collect

heritage sheep fleeces.

It's a well-known fact that kangaroos

eat bedbugs, so they don't have very many

in the country.

That's when we discovered the joys

of hosting sheep lice.

So I divorced my first wife and married

a centipede. Our eggs are many. We

hide them in warm dark moist places.



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