Some primal termite knocked on wood; and tasted it, and found it good. That is why your Cousin May fell through the parlor floor today.

In four comic lines, Nash offers a mock “origin story” for termites: a prehistoric insect “knocked on wood,” liked the taste, and thereby set in motion a chain of destruction that culminates in a modern domestic mishap. The humor comes from the exaggerated causal leap from “primal” experiment to Cousin May’s sudden fall through a parlor floor, blending faux-scientific explanation with everyday embarrassment. The rhyme and sing-song meter mimic a nursery rhyme, heightening the absurdity while also satirizing our desire to find neat explanations for messy, inconvenient realities—like household decay—by pinning them on some distant first cause.