Poem

You might think a dog
with a huge swollen tick
on it's floppy ear is a costume
a disguise of some sort when in fact
it is just the opposite where the opposite
holds true: the costume is the
parasite so the dog is host to the transformer
you run into the house now
and get a bic lighter
tweezers
and a hot fork
and you go to work on the tick
until the tip of the fork becomes bright
with heat and then with blood and then
the disguise is a sort of mess that you
flick into the grass under the sprinkler
where the kids play.