Aedes vexans

Grace

On the last day of summer, drifting slow as hope through the thick air of evening

she chances into the plume of CO2 from my breath, follows it upstream

to my arm’s telltale heat. She hovers, then slowly sinks the last few inches straight

down into my pelt with all her landing gear extended, proboscis going into the skin even

as the slight craft of her body still rides the hairs down, her feet stretching one

by one down, down, & I am here. Lord, I am here.

She is beautiful & blameless & I in a mood to share the beer in my veins, watching

as her banded abdomen turns dark, inflates. A long minute later

she pulls out, rises unsteadily & sails off singing her single note.

Then comes a rapid patter across the field, the yard, staccato on the porch roof &

into the woods – suddenly it’s pouring & the treetops are bending, swaying under

the weight of it before the first drops reach the forest floor.

A wheal rises where the mosquito took the only blood supper of her

purposeful life. While I sit waiting for God knows what it has fallen to me,

what she no longer needs: the goad of her saliva. Her fierce itch.