Farewell to my earthworm, Yvonne,
Who has grown rather pallid and wan.
Certain notes I would hum
Made her coil round my thumb.
I can scarcely believe that she’s gone.
Human beings will mourn even the most apparently-inconsequential creature, once they have elevated it to the status of personal pet. Yet note how this plaint is entirely self-centred, and the principle recollection focuses on episodes of manipulation and control.
At the start of the soirée Voltaire
Had several large worms in his hair.
As the evening wore on
I observed that they’d gone,
Though I dread to imagine quite where.
Some readers will suppose that our narrator has been hallucinating: possibly the soirée itself, or the celebrated host’s writhing hairdo, or – most likely – the vanishing of a tonsorial infestation. But let’s not be guilty of underthinking a righteous parable, in which even the lowliest creatures – like rats, instinctively quitting a sinking ship – desert the living corpse of a shameless anti-Semite.