MOSQUITO

By Charlotte Murray

In this version, I follow him out of the bar

as darkness slides from midnight blue

to ocean-deep black. It’s when he pauses

and looks over his shoulder that my sandalled feet

leave the earth and his gaze hits blankness,

empty space where he’d expected flesh.

His smirk falters. My legs whittle away

to sewing pins, proportions shift

until I am 80% stomach and 100% hunger.

The ripe seed pods of my shoulder blades

burst apart to birth translucent, veiny wings

on a stalk emboldened by summer.

I am the whine of a broken appliance, a rapidly

falling incendiary, only heard when it’s too late.

I dwell in the hollows of his body, dainty enough

to rest in the curve of his ear canal, slender enough

to squat on the collar of his polo shirt and pierce

the patch of pale skin beside his Adam’s apple.

He slaps himself around the head while I cackle

and gorge until my underside is stop-sign red.

In this version, the blood is his, beer-soaked

and satiating. Here we are, the world’s two

most deadly creatures. I hunker down

on the curtain rail as my feast collides

with his stinking pillow, a tangle of linen

and exposed skin. In a couple of days’ time,

when I’ve digested three times my bodyweight

of his mediocre pedigree, I’ll lay my eggs

in the salt marshes of his sweat glands,

raise my daughters to hunt.

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