Wake Up with Fleas

My mom complains of nibblings
on her legs. Red welts that spread
constellations across the expanse
of her white skin.

"And they're rising. They're coming
for the rest of me every night, " She says.

The sheets swish through the suds
and scrape against the washboard.
I'm determined for all of them to die.
So I scour them as my
knees dig into the crabgrass.
The metal of the bucket rings
against the clang of the washboard.
My fists full of the likeness of canvas
and plunged once again--drowning
and guillotining.
Pink soap bubbles now.
My knuckles scalped. The skin skimmed
along the metal and with the sheets.

I baptize it all down deep
three more times
with the breath,
"Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."
And purified they rise.
To be slung on the tree limbs.
To dry. Never to profane
the Mother.

Wind comes swiftly down
the Great Rift Valley and
swings the droplets free.
"Water our vegetable garden,"
I tell those sheets.

Before long the sun falls
and howling rises from the wild dogs
The dim earth knows of those that wander.
Time to lock them out. To hide behind
the barred windows and to pray.

The sheets come down into my arms
and whip and form to my body.
I look out at the smoke rising from
the thousand cooking fires. And the haze
that covers the orange sunset and
shadows the mountain over us.

"We don't sleep with the dogs," I say,
"but we still wake up with the fleas."