The Not-Yet-Swarm

“Beast with White Head” by Chuck Runnoe

This same walk on the same dune trail
In the state park that is my neighbor

The same dog I sometimes call Bicho Stuvy
Has pooped twice on this walk making this is a decent day

My other neighbor is an army base
And I catch the tuck-tuck of a tank’s
Pair of endless metal tracks

Pups and I startle an eagle
From a pine or spruce branch
Its wings rustle this hill of beachforest

It has gone off

And so have these mosquitoes
Hatched days ago in the puddles
Now slurfully bumbling
Swooping
Looking dumb
Mostly at eye level

One falls into me and I rake it
To my lips with my tongue

Its stripes are lovely

They don’t yet know
The pull to reproduce

That I could be the bloodmeal
They need to do it

This same poem
Where Nature shows me an Order
All I want is to include me

The welt the bite will make
Somewhat bound but persisting
The size of a quarter
The color of milk
And I will let it
And I will complain about it

I try to recall the time before Hunger
But I don’t

All around me
These so many things are buzzing
Making a scene
None of them is an invitation to

The blood
That leads to the eggs
That lead to the water
Yes
The same water

About the Author

Lauren Mallett’s poems appear in Poetry Northwest, Puerto del Sol, The Seventh Wave, The Night Heron Barks, and other journals. She lives on Clatsop land of Oregon’s north coast. www.laurenmallett.com.

about the artist

Chuck Runnoe is retired from weekly newspaper work and carrying mail. Daily walks allow him the opportunity to slow down and see, appreciate and photograph often overlooked subjects, which isolated can become interesting, significant, even beautiful. Runnoe enjoys getting close so natural subjects (e.g. Dumpster surfaces, prints of creatures and machines in dirt and snow, pavement repair) become abstract.