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Tasting Calamine


by Carl Santoro


Damn,  I thought it was my IPA pink guava beer.

My bites have been swabbed.
Soaked and heavy wet cottenballs all calamine-pink.

A frenzied air chase ended the career of
a Psorophora mosquito.
It's definitely a biter. It's definitely dead now.
I think.

Scratching must be like what crack is.
Hallucinating every thought.

Bubbling into volcanic terrors.
There's too much scratching.
My nails, now filled with wet calamine lotion
and blood.

Itch-serum speeding under 
surface skin. Three new ones in under a minute.
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 Guava beverage falls.
The lotion spills.
The bite wins.

I can hear the Psorophora laughing.






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