20150903 (infestation)

Qui cum canibus concumbunt 

Cum pulicibus surgent*

Might have been true in Ben Franklin’s

Day when he promoted this proverb

Seneca framed centuries ago

Today we have Frontline and Advantix

For both cats and dogs I’ve been 

Nothing short of religious in their 

Care I know what flea invasion means

Firsthand or should I say first legs

When the kids were young 

Jean and I took the family

Away for the weekend

Left the cats home with food water

Clean sand but God forbid

Failed to close the basement

Windows our Toshkins and Chessica

Fraternized at the screens with the

Neighborhood ferals were soon the 

Bearers of full frontal fleadom

Which you might know spreads to

Carpets beds not long after

Returning I was being bitten

Ferociously about my ankles and

Calves after a night in the sack

My back chest arms experts  

Told me fleas don’t bite itchy

Welts the result of skin irritation

From flea feces you can imagine how this 

Calmed my feverish heart you’d

Have sworn Salvadoran Death Squads

Were stubbing cigarette butts out on my skin

Jean and the children while not immune

Were troubled far less Daddy the nutcase

Was going full tilt we’ve got to stop this

I opened the bedcovers for Jean showed

Her the black pepperspecks hopping to life

That night we bought several aerosol

Bombs designed to kill fleas 

Next day set them throughout 

The house closed all the windows

Sequestered the cats comfortably in the 

Garage then beginning in the attic

Set the bombs off bedrooms bath

Living dining kitchen basement

Locked the doors and left for a long day

At Cedar Point to give Zyclon Z all 

The time it would need to work

Disperse and expire it worked for two weeks

But the eggs in the rugs curtains spreads

Carpets emerged to ravage me again

Painkillers hell I needed tranquilizers

That’s when we hired the pest company

Paid through the snoot the first time 

The second time a third would have been

Their cost kind of a warranty better by 

Far than my only solution 

Out of Frankenstein  was to 

Burn down the house 

Needless to note we had few bipedal 

Visitors that summer

c. J.S.Manista, 2015

*Who lies with dogs will rise with fleas (usually interpreted as: "Be careful with whom you associate; you will take on their flaws."  Here the interpretation is far more literal.)