J.P. White
Late Hour Concession to the Mosquito
In the soggy narrow trench where laughter is infrequent,
Your blood meal appetite is unmatched.
You have killed more people than all the wars
Ever launched by the human tongue.
Your slow misery calling cards are the unmistakable fevers,
Viruses, parasites, and worms scribbled
Into the last letters of soldiers, newly-weds and philosophers.
To stop you, we have siphoned busted levees,
Drained swamps, marshes and sanctuaries,
Unleashed pesticide blooms over golf courses & 7-Elevens,
Radiated reproductive organs under microscopes,
But still your numbers swell beyond all accounting
And here I am inside another week of thunder rain
Down on the noise in my knees praying for the dragonfly,
The only one who can outflank and gobble you,
Praying even though we now know
Its great dragon migrations have been interrupted
And they are no longer seen in some far north places
Where they have always been a sign of the blue-green blur of summer.
J.P. White is the author of the poetry collections The Sleeper at the Party (Defined Providence Press, 2001), The Salt Hour (The University of Illinois Press, 2001), The Pomegranate Tree Speaks from the Dictator’s Garden (Holy Cow Press, 1988), and In Pursuit of Wings (Panache Books, 1978). His essays, articles, fiction, reviews, interviews and poetry have appeared in The Nation, The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Gettysburg Review, American Poetry Review, Sewanee Review, Shenandoah, Prairie Schooner, and many other journals and anthologies. He holds a BA from New College (1973), an MA from Colorado State University (1977), and an MFA from Vermont College (1990). He lives on Lake Minnetonka near Minneapolis.
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