SAND CHIGGERS

Easter Sunday, 2009

On Sundays I carried baskets

from the red Studebaker 

to the Portage Laundromat

and helped my mother sort

loads into washtubs, then

filled the coin slots with silver dimes

and turned the knobs to "Hot/Heavy Wash"

and when the tub of whites began

to churn we opened up the lids

and added a cup of bleach

that stank more than the truck

that pumped sewage from the machines.

It was the grocer who ratted me out.

Given two nickels to spend 

at the Beer and Wine by the creek

I scoured the old highway ditch

for empties, discarded bottles of Blatz

and Drewrys for their 2 cents bounty,

I fished among the weeds for rusty

train line spikes, steak bones,

among the dragonflies and 

the weeds stung my legs, my hands

bled with rust.  At the beer store

I exchanged my loot for Milk Duds,

Necco Wafers and a bag of Be-Mo

Bar-B-Q potato chips and

a bottle O-So black cherry

to wash down the orange fire.

That night the fire spread to my legs

and red welts from my scratching.

I spent hours in the bathtub

every night, soaking while mother

daubed each scab with bleach

and I yelped at my stinging

flesh, shins and calves and ankles,

fierce blisters, laying in  the water

and kicking my skinny legs 

for inspection and more bleach,

an agony with each cotton dab

as my skin bunched into red

knots that bled puss.  "I told you 

about the chiggers," she said, 

and with swab I kicked and

thrashed, splashing water on

her and the linoleum.

Penance, the punishment for

disobedience and gluttony,

the stink of bleach curdling

my stomach like the Bar-B-Q

dusted chips and the chocolate

and soda syrup, stinging flesh,

the nettled fire a reminder

of the wages of sin, the price

of sin, the suffering of 

Jesus Christ our lord and master, 

and the real cost of living 

in this unforgiving world.