Rocky Mountain Ticks

Rocky Mountain Ticks

Roaming around -

On top of my head.

(Now that’s alarming!)

My wife won’t stop long enough

To touch them.

(She thinks ticks are

Disgusting.)

Listen, mister, she says.

I’m not touching any ticks 

(Without surgical gloves,

A mask, and tweezers).

Just find them, I say,

How tough is it to spot a tick?

(Especially when I feel them

Twitching around up there.)

Hold still, there's nothing in your hair –
No ticks, no fleas, no lice.

Just dead skin (and tiny droppings

From something else.)

Then, Dear, look in my ears!

Don't you see them?  (I know

They’re there, distorting what I hear,

Hundreds of them.)

You're feverish, she says, or
You've lost your mind instead.
(From what I can see, I'd say  –

You're crazy.)

Fuck! I respond, but what 
The hell's going on, why can't you find them?
This is all very fishy... ( – Hey, why's my
Bottom so itchy?)