The Season in Which I Was Bitten
by Morrow Dowdle
Hundreds of mosquitoes pillaged
histaminergic. The itch unhinged me.
Sometimes I’m afraid to be
attacked again, yet here I am
in the same patch of woods. I lean
between trees and squirrels bicker,
spider webs dismantle sun-plucked.
Then here it comes, this one
mosquito.
And I see now
how it flies: it dances.
Not hawk’s drift and strike, not
sparrow’s flit to another limb,
no, the mosquito bobs and sways, lets
swing the little string of its body.
I could say it’s scanning my blood’s secret
beat. Or that it loves life, like anything else
and is teaching me to be
better consumed. Leaves
tap my shoulder. One’s a palette, green
smeared yellow then brown. Spectrum
of a change incomplete, nothing
ever truly finished.
The leaves could bury me, if I let them.
They tell me death is just
life suggesting it’s time
to become something else.
Morrow Dowdle (they/them) is the author of the chapbook Hardly (Bottlecap Press, 2024) and has poetry forthcoming in New York Quarterly, Rattle, ONE ART, and I-70 Review. They are a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and a finalist for the 2024 Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize. They edit poetry for Sunspot Literary Journal and run a performance series called “Weave & Spin” which features BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ voices. They are an MFA candidate at Pacific University and live in Durham, NC. Find out more on Instagram.
