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Spread the Word

See Bio & Other Work

Wynne Morrison, MD, MBE

Contributor's Note

I’ve always been fascinated by how accepted scientific dogma can change with time or with the accumulation of new information. I remembered learning in school that pregnant women were more susceptible to malaria, with the thought being that they were somehow immunologically more susceptible. So I was fascinated when I read a paper that made perfect sense—it wasn’t a difference in immune function, but merely that during pregnancy women were more likely to leave the protection of their bed netting at night due to the inevitable urinary frequency that occurs as the bladder is compressed. This poem tries to make that scenario feel real.

Falciparum

Poetry, Vol 6: Iss 1

 

“nonimmune pregnant women are
disproportionately affected by the disease”
—Mandell, Douglas, and Bennett's Principles and Practice of Infectious Diseases

 

Maybe the woman on the field team

was the one to figure it out.

The immune changes

of pregnancy are not to blame.

Nor does the victim’s gravid body

make her a more luscious mosquito meal.

It is only her bladder,

forced to share space

with a trying temporary tenant.

 

She pushes aside the sheer nets

shrouding her bed,

sways slowly outside,

toes dig in the warm earth,

squats precariously

for a sweet release,

as a proboscis so silently

pierces her soft flesh.