Kissing Bug

Rhodnius prolixus

The dry season ends with an abrupt deluge. We run for a three- walled hut at the edge of a pasture, crowd in under the tiled roof until someone spots the kissing bugs, vectors of Chagas disease, crouched in a crack in the adobe, distinctive patterning like a miniature African mask with abstract features & a net for teeth, the real face little more than a syringe. I come close for a better look & they back up slowly, legs bent, poised as prizefighters. And knowing their fondness for human blood sucked from the thin skin of lips & eyelids, unwilling to find out if they only prey on sleepers, we decide instead to brave the rain & pitch camp a hundred yards off. That night, sleep is elusive: a plague of frogs has just emerged from estivation, their temporary coffins dissolved into mud & primordial lust. I stand in the darkness listening to that thunder of need, pulling my unfiltered cigarette’s cherry almost to my lips.