Three Essays on Ants While I Hover Overhead, Poisoning Them
by Dennis James Sweeney
How Regret Falls Like Rain, Seasonal but Never Promising
The ants waltz in droves to their dying : sweet
syrup at the brittle edge of hunger . I do
not want to kill a being . I do not want
to be death . But the ants are driven mad
by my small war . Their faces glow with
ghoulish hairs I can feel in my teeth . I
touch the echo of a body , a swarm calculating
: where in the house can I hide from hunger
(where in the house is the nearest peace ) ?
I am telling you about homeownership , fatherhood
, and the cold mass of protection . My body
hovers over the ants , a shadow . Darkness for
the ants is a sun fleeing . No , I do
not know how to love what I glimpse .
I have to kill them , I say to myself .
I will not forget — you have to choose who
you love and me , I have chosen . I will
bleach the edges of our house . I will firewash
the window panes . I love my family , and
love means killing every threat .
I would rather die than kill , I say to
myself . But I have made promises in life ,
and promises are meat .
Kill with the sanctimonious pressure of household
commitment . Kill for the trapped and boiling
basement treat . Kill because my ring itches .
Kill because I am in charge of the garage and
its grease . Kill beneath the clouds that evaporate
killing . Kill with the chilly force of a barely-
fitting grate . Kill because the blankets’ smell
incites feverish memories . Kill with the exactitude
of a mechanistic age . . .
Oh , kill the gendered distribution of labor .
Kill being asked to kill because you are a man
. Kill the cave of homophonic longing . Kill
my accomplishments , kill the sport , where contact
lingers hard and great . Kill abstention . Kill
killing . Kill oil , the falsified thing that
smooths our limbs . . .
Then listen to the cracks : I live in my
house like ants live . They huddle in the
floorboards . They exist . And I writhe at the
center , an empire though cars declare RESIST ,
and even the floorboards supply a home only to
purify all who do not fit , which is every
thing that lives , the ants first , me last ,
as gracious as empire has ever been . “ A
man’s house is his castle . ” Windows are for
looking upon our threat , and I am bent on
my knees dripping poison into the floor , helpless
as the ants pace mad circles , ravaged by the
sweet agent . Infinity crawls beneath this wood ,
ever-flowing bath of companions , and I will kill
them until I die . I want to cry but I
do not know how to . I want to cry not
for them but for myself .
Instead I will falsify my love . I will live
a violent devotion . I will massage forgetting into
the wood , the nervous house , the tense
system . There , like waking minutes between sleep
they eat , so sweet , calm with a coat of
blood to stay warm in . Warm out . Warmth
decays , and then —
As If We Could Flee From Nearness
Theimpossibletexturesofmorningdripintothenewhouse,spaceforthethoughtfulnessthathasalwaysbe
encrammed.Butantspilehardatthemouthofthepoison,can’tgetenough,oldtaleofthebottleneckleadin
gtohell.Whatelseforthesuntoriseon,mysteriouspressofedgesonedges?Acolonyisthepartoftheselftha
tridiculestheself.
Iwoketodayinmyownswarm.Theinfinitpressoftime,thewallsgripachother,sweatlikeacoldbottlelefti
nthepromiseofabreakforallkind.Killingissomethingthathasalreadybeenaccomplished.Howelsetopu
mpthestateDeathiswarm,that’srealenergy,bodiesbecomebodieswhenthereisanendlessdelay.Ileave
homewiththegloryofstayinguprightsurroundedbyenough.Ireturnhomecompressed,airmushedintoa
weightymessage,allofitacrystal-hardmarble’ssize.
WhenIwassmallweaddedmorehousetoourhouse.Welivedinourpristinepinkness.Ouredgedglasstabl
etopsterrifiedme.
I’mnotsmallnow.Tightwithcreation.Thickincontrol,treesundermulch,leavesacrust,papermountains
ofamemoryofamemory.Windowslookingatthelooked-atthing,that’spowerifI’veeverheardit.You’reoutsideandIcanseeyou.We’reallteethbeinggnashedfro
mwithin.Particlesofselfgrindintimately.Perceptionisthenearnessofanextbreath.
Survivalisafamilybusiness,compoundeyeshorrifiedbythesingularity.
Thedigitsofthestarsparseuntiltheyravagethemselves.Splitintoaskeletonkey.
Thankyou,myorganssmashtogetherlikeascreamedconversion,aspherelingersintheflatlandscape,Ilo
vebutnooneistheretoreceiveit,anemptyroomistheresultofdecay.Theliveswillnotwaitforyou,thecrus
hislonesome,everythingisnothingbutthelackofatrait,thiscolonylives,thiscolonylives,itfallstogetheri
nahill,itrisesinamountain,todayisamass,aprayer,agushingweight,acave.
There Was Nothing I Couldn’t Do, Except Disappear
Ants would just come up from the floorboards.
I had to kill them. That was my job in the family.
I didn’t want to kill, but if I didn’t—what next?
They had already begun crawling over our bodies in the night.
Our bodies would have become their bodies, and we weren’t ready to let go of ourselves.
This is the fault in claiming something is yours.
Every day I even eat, I think of who I am killing. Self-sufficiency has always haunted me.
The crazed desire to ask nothing of anyone!
We all know where self-sufficiency leads.
I live to crush the air where I stand.
The ants course underneath me like a mat made of water.
A soft mat where I cannot rest.
I do not want the authority of a living being.
I want to be a stone, a shadow of encased memories.
I want to be a cloud that forms and dissipates with no exhaustion.
I want to be breath, only that, no body at all. I want to spin and spin on my own swallowed axis.
I want to love without defending.
In, out, breath does not know what it is passing through. It only feels the cool house of flesh.
Morning, however, is the rise of need.
I drink water with a capful of Apple Cider Vinger in it. I incorporate it.
Maybe all killing is this way: less destruction than absorption.
I carry around the price of my existence with me.
This is the reason I must die eventually, too.
You can bury yourself—or you can carry a heavy sack of dirt around.
My solution was to kill the ants.
I killed them.
I gave them poison that spread to the entire colony.
I don’t know what it feels like to die, and they know.
Night is falling on the day I defend. The house is quiet and seething.
