No one would burn your name for not seeing the ant’s careful antennae testing the air next to your shoe, six legs almost rowing it along. Who

would be upset if you brushed one off-handedly off your arm, undone by the tiny steps: what do they want, you ask — unaware that they breathe through their sides. Do they sleep? Do they dream anything? No one should

mark your soul short if you mash one: when two ants meet there’s no tongue for hello — it’s a bug, a nearly less than little thing: at most, made to chisel crumbs under the fridge with eyes that, even in brightest day, see not reds or greens but gray and gray again. Who would

curse your life if you bring out the Raid? How many books have they read? — that brain a virtual speck. Is all they carry really work

or just some dumb old daily ado? — the heart spending what blood, what prehistoric nudge on that handsome, brittle head.