THE GOOD CITIZEN

Maroon and white cap on your head to avoid the ticks
as you step high over itchy weeds at the mouth of the path,
hitchhikers and burs grab onto your knee high tube socks
and mud sticks to the soles of your low top Pro Keds.

Finally you reach the hardened path that winds
through brush, thickets, and honeysuckle vines.
A field filled with all kinds of scrubby plants, hard to believe
a farmer used to harvest a crop of strawberries in this spot
before he sold the land to the apartment builders.
He fled to Florida, where the cost of living is so much less.

After the bend in the path, you stop to examine the nests.
Cottony webs of the gypsy moth caterpillars woven strategically
in the crotch of a young dogwood tree, little worms swarm
and twist inside the wispy walls, laying eggs like peppercorns.
They keep weaving. They keep eating. They keep building.
You throw rocks into the nest like you always do.
You poke it with a sharp stick like you always do.
You watch the eggs fall out like they always do.
The tiny creatures raise up in a pitiful attack mode,
no match for the ramming of the stick one more glorious time.

You dream about spraying them with Raid, or better yet,
soaking them down with lighter fluid and torching them
with a Bic lighter you snuck out of your grandmother’s house.
It is fun to watch the nest sizzle, smoke, and burn
like a strange crispy brown marshmallow held too close to the campfire.
You imagine the little ones screaming for mercy like the fly
in the Creature Double Feature movie you saw on Channel 48.
By killing them, I’m being a good citizen is what you would say
if an elderly neighbor discovered you enjoying these torture games.

You’ve been told that the gypsy moths are bad bugs and
“thousands upon thousands of Jersey’s wooded acres” are being gobbled
up by the little worms, The Atlantic City Press said
nothing good about the “proliferation of the Moth Larvae”.
More than likely, you’re not a cold blooded killer in training or
a homicidal maniac, just a normal eleven year old boy who
is curious about nature and equally curious about death.