Archive >VOL. 20, NO. 1

Cheryl Moskowitz

The Ants

The ants are here again this time armed with extra
thermo-tolerance see them in their chitin marching suits
antennae out and ready for action making a line from
door to cupboard we ran out of jars to store the honey
nut Cheerios and someone left the Twinkie wrapper
open the picnic’s spoiled anyway now Grandma’s got
sunstroke and Bessie says she can’t use factor 50 anymore
because it gives the baby hives looks like we’re all stuck
inside today nowhere else to go on this urban heat island
of ours of course it’s not the raised temperature but the
Raid traps we put down that gets them first I like these
little guys Grandpa says saluting the ants as if he was back
in Burma somewhere on the long trek to Kunmeng
at least they’re civil to one another he’s been watching
one or two of them carrying their dead sometimes 5 or 6
corpses at a time they’ll lift ten times their own weight
Grandpa gasps trying to save their own “Necrophoresis”
Leonard names it because he knows about these things
it’s already noon and getting harder for any of us do much
of anything but breathe even the ants are struggling
despite their many “miracle spiracles” as Leonard calls them
especially now little Joey’s trapped a bunch of them under
the salad bowl any of you gonna to do that for me? wheezes
Grandpa he means the carrying not the covering
but he can barely exhale his words anymore now sweat
is pouring down his brow Nah! he splutters the drool
from his chin cooling down the ants that have already
crawled into his beard for shelter didn’t think so