Watching the Chiggers

The chiggers like the concrete slab
on the sides of my porch steps.
I often have breakfast out there
where I can watch them up close.
The slab looks plain and gray a moment,
but when you lean close, countless
needle pricks of dancing parasites
draw into view. They move in fractal
patterns of turning and stopping,
and seem never to touch. They must
be looking for blood, but they don’t
act at all tempted by me. My nose
is a foot away at most, and they should
smell the CO2 of my breath and know
there is a bouquet of capillaries
for each one of them in the sky.

I like to watch them and know the trouble
they would bring me if I put my cheek
down on the slab and let them come.
I don’t pour out my boiled water on them,
or spray window cleaner just to see
what it does. They allow me to look
patently at the face of villains, and don’t
we all long to see the devil’s face that way.