SLEEPING WITH THE KISSING BUG
(Triatoma protracta)

I wake to the itch of whatever
visits our sheets. You’re wrapped up
mummy-safe. One more kiss
could kill you.

We live in the packrat’s den,
parasitic heap of papers
and old clothes. Does one become
sensitized

to the heaviness of living?
Does habit sting in the dark,
until finally it kills us? Or is it
our own metabolic vitals,

protein turning deadly
on a whim? So unpredictable,
this iteration of life. We speak
of allergies like a season

of inconvenience. We bless us
as we sneeze. But there’s an assassin-
bug that’s set to prick your veins.
I wake to anything that moves.


Taylor Graham is a volunteer search-and-rescue dog handler in the Sierra Nevada. She's included in the anthology California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present (Santa Clara University, 2004). Her book The Downstairs Dance Floor (Texas Review Press, 2006) was awarded the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize, and she’s a finalist in this year's Poets & Writers’ California Writers Exchange. Her newest book – Walking with Elihu: poems on Elihu Burritt, the Learned Blacksmith – is available on Amazon.