The Flea
There is no living thing
Whether on foot, fin or wing
Can boast a genealogy
More ancient than
the common flea.
It is the flea that chews
Moslems, Christians, Jews,
And has chewed the ancestral skin
Since man invented sin;
There even before the Fall
There were fleas inside the wall
To mortify the least
Of each Edenic beast;
And since fleas have fleas to bite 'em--
And so on ad infinitum,
Then it is possible that
Some thoughtless flea begat
The universe and its laws
By nipping the Primal Cause,
Which, when it felt the bite,
Scratched, and lo! there was light!
Well, if that's how things were begot
It would account for a lot.
Isabella Fey
Punch 1968