Writing

Mornings, I write at my desk,    and yesterday I was deep into transforming      an article about the Australian honey ant into a poem         when Parker, limp from chemo (he has many diseases),

walks into the bedroom.    I could subdivide my attention,     and say “For Christ Sake         I’m concentrating on this masterpiece.            It takes a lot of sorting.”

Or—”Your ears are bi-sexual.    You are altogether beautiful though awaiting your new teeth.”     But speech allays concentration

which must be centered on the poem which concerns my niece.    After graduation she and her future husband went to Australia.     For a year they travelled that country in a trailer.         It was my niece who told me of the Australian honey ant.

How the aborigines dig holes in the ground. Sit in the holes.    Search at the side for tunnels in which the ants have burrowed.     The Aborigines love to eat the ants         for the sweetness of the bloated honeyed stomach.            Color of amber, size of grape.

Parker has decided disease demonstrates    lack of perfection of the expanse in general.     So concentrates on the fractured everyday—

In his building, his neighbor,    prepossessing, but with the short breath of the dying,      daily twists the knob of Parker’s door and roars “give it up,” “give in.”

Years after my niece had spoken of the Australian Honey ant,I came across this article in a religious magazine:“UNLIKE BEES WHO STORE THEIR HONEY IN HONEYCOMBS THE AUSTRALIAN HONEY ANT STORES HONEY IN ITS BODY IN THE MONSTER SWOLLEN ABDOMEN OF A SPECIES OF WORKER ANT”

These worker ants with swollen abdomens are called “REPLETES.”    Not by other ants. By entomologists.     By readers who’ll read this poem. By Me.

I read the poem to Parker and ask,    “Do you think ‘Honey’ would be a good title?       I mean, it’s better than ‘Swollen Abdomen.’         What about ‘In Alice Springs under the Acacias?’”            Parker winced.

And in the underground desert    the ants scrawl the stanzas      crawl the calligraphy     lick the letters         until the boots of alliteration            deflate their lantern stomachs               but honey will still be honey                  the taste remains