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Thirteen Ways of Looking at
a Parasite
(With no apologies to Wallace Stevens)
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the wing of a botfly.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a horse
In which there are three kinds of bots.
III
The fly laid the eggs on the horses’ legs.
It was the first phase of the reproductive process.
IV
A horse and an owner
Are one.
A horse and an owner and bot larvae
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer
The ease of daily dewormers
Or the convenience of paste,
The veterinarian with the nasogastric tube
Or just after.
VI
Bot larvae adhere to the stomach lining
Where they remain indefinitely.
A dose of Ivermectin
Will wipe the suckers out.
Disbelief. My mood
Traced in the shade of the barnyard
An indecipherable cause
VII
Oh cheap owners of Southcentral Alaska,
Why do you not deworm your horses?
Do you not see how the botfly
Buzzes around the feet
Of the horses about you?
VIII
I know noble equines,
And lucid, inescapable truths,
But I know too
That gastrerophilus intestinalis is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the bot larvae dropped to the ground
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of botflies
Flying in a green light
Horses of all breeds, colors, and gender
Cried out sharply.
XI
She rode over the Mat Su Valley
On a chestnut Icelandic horse
Once, a fear pierced her
In that she mistook
The shadow of her equipage
For botflies.
XII
The river is moving
The larvae must be pupating.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The bot larvae rested
In the dirt, underground.
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