A group of travelers dodges a sudden downpour by crowding into a hut, only to discover kissing bugs hiding in the wall. The speaker describes them with a mix of fascination and unease: their markings look like a tiny mask, their faces like syringes, and they back away "as prizefighters" would, ready to fight. Knowing they carry Chagas disease and feed on people's lips and eyelids, the group chooses the rain over the roof and camps farther off.
The ending shifts from fear of the bugs to something wilder. Sleepless, the speaker listens to frogs that have just emerged from the dry season's dormancy, loud with "primordial lust." The speaker's mood feels tense, alert, and a little awed. Everything out there is hungry, whether for blood or for mating. The last image, the cigarette's glowing tip drawn almost to the lips, quietly echoes the earlier danger: the speaker, too, flirts with a risk close to the mouth.