Earworm

A German phrase for a tune you cannot get out of your head

At the first twisting I believed it would pass.

I knew how these creatures fluttered,

took wing and retreated.

Now it has eaten so much of my brain

it must be fattened

beyond any easy escape.

I tried singing it out,

as if volume might be the salt needed

to dissolve it

but my voice only made it swell.

Maybe if the whole song were known

it could fade with the last phrase.

But only the first line of the chorus,

a nonsense phrase, six

jingling bars, stays with me to dictate

the speed of my walk,

how my pencil taps the desk, even my breathing.

I wait for the cycle to complete,

for the bopping worm

to become cocoon, then butterfly, but I fear

this hummable slug

prefers the damp nest it has found

and will remain,

a slick, legless creature determined