poem of the day 02.24.15

ants

telly kept all kinds

of fast food bags in the office

he had the bags full of free trinkets

that he got at trade shows and other events

one of them held several hundred pens in it

although the bags still held the odor of food

the office smelled of rancid meat

and french fry grease whenever telly was there

in the spring the fast food bags attracted ants

some days there were just a few

but on most a line of thousands of ants

went single file behind computer stands and desks

to reach the fast food bags on telly’s side

instead of doing my job

i’d watch the ants scale the height of a bag

they looked like mountain climbers working in tandem

then they’d fall off the edge into the bag

as if committing a mass suicide into a volcano

there were many days where i had to take a broom

and get rid of hundreds of the ants

i felt like a grand executioner

killing entire colonies in one sweep

i knew i’d never be a buddhist doing this business

i felt for the ants

they were only doing what came naturally to them

at my worst

i’d have to take several

fast food bags and squash them

to the ants i imagined

it was like a bomb going off

one second fast food bliss

the other second mass annihilation

by the time telly came to work

both the bags and the ants were gone

he’d put his things down and then circle around his desk

looking at all of that negative space

where are my fast food bags?

he’d ask me, in that lispy way of his

but i’d just shrug and turn back to my computer

or i’d get up and go to the bathroom

to stare at my sinister self in the mirror

a mass murderer if ever there was one

before turning on the hot, brown water

trying my best to wipe the blood from my hands.