O, Meal Worm

A meal worm eats me like a gourd of flesh,
     this slimy beast I dread; two weeks or more
until my heart's (that once was young and fresh) 
     a hole that brims with the plaque of its gore.

Soft-bodied, legless, and writhing, this meal worm,
     like yeast that leavens a raw loaf of baked bread,
or phage that necrotizes like a germ,
     consumes its host until it's thoroughly fed.

Elongated and portly, like a porcine
     (a fat creature and ravenous parasite!)
with the over-sized appetite of a swine,
     you threaten me with a sick, terminal blight. 

But if I were the brave one, O meal worm,
I'd make a meal of you and watch you squirm!
Copyright © | Year Posted 2023

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