Drinking Calamine
by Carl Santoro
Shit, I thought it was a Beck's.
The bites have been swabbed.
Cottenballs all pink.
A frenzied air chase ended the career of
a tiny moth.
Thought it was a biter. Sorry.
Hallucinating every thought.
Scratching must be like what crack is.
Itch-serum speeding under
surface skin. 3 new ones in under a minute.
Bubbling into volcanic terrors.
My nails, filled with wet lotion and blood-
too much scratching.
This used to be a war with
poison ivy...
at camp...
every summer.
Calamine's hypnotic scent
too lovely to
be a weapon.
I release the pink lava.
It oozes onto yet another
cotton ball.
Bandit at 3:00!
With bottle in hand
I swing to deflect.
The Beck's falls.
The lotion spills.
The bite wins.
I can hear the moth laughing.
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I like this one... It’s evocative.... Reminds me of sleeping in a bath with a bad case of poison oak.
My nails, filled with wet lotion and blood-
too much scratching.
I dig the short lines and relatable imagery--you move through it quick as thoughts, but the right words are in there to sustain its immediacy.
Thank you Steven and John for your comments on "Drinking Calamine".
Rumours abound that "they" will be spraying the area with "the poison". If they have done so, it wasn't in my neck of the woods. All the escapees are feasting on me and my family as though they are discovering humans for the first time.
I have been sleeping with the doors open recently and I empathize with all of this.
Plus, "All the escapees are feasting on me and my family as though they are discovering humans for the first time" is a great image too.
Jane - I loved your "Quitting" piece on your blog:
"where the dirt and the ground are the same."
Thank you for your comments on "Drinking Calamine"...and put some screens on those doors of yours, will ya!?!!