Homage to a Flea

Somewhere between yesterday morning
and last night, a flea slipped
in my armpit while I rode
my bike from the optometrist
to the bookstore to the park
and around the block after dark.
Somehow this invisible
free flying insect got caught in
my snag of everyday life
my daily bag of tricks without an airbag
life insurance or a last supper.

Unbeknownst to me
it bit and bit leaving no itch
just dry red markers
of attempted escape
from my churning arm
my restless self.

How heroic this tiny flea
alone in peculiar sweat
awash in dark spinning,
chugging bed of hair and skin
Searching for a way out
bumping and biting, ripping, racing
against a time it doesn’t know
eating at a wall of constant motion
or falling off crushed and wing torn.

While my universe pedals on
as the earth passes under a silver moon
wondering how to breathe or drink
or spill, rotating into the endless
speck of it all, without a name,
or a bug to pin it on.