I started thinking
About why I have hair in
My nose and my ears
(please don’t look at me
like that, I don’t know WHERE these
ideas come from!)
and the answer was
actually obvious
and matter of fact:
we need protection
to keep insects out of our
noses and our ears.
How maddening that
must have been for Proto-man
trying to survive
without claw or fang
on African savannahs
where alertness could
mean the difference
between an ugly death or
a harsh survival,
bedeviled by swarms
of hungry insects crawling
into noses and ears
driving Proto-man
to dangerous distraction.
Only the hairy
members of the clan
managed to pass along
their life-saving genes.