Why?

We stood there,
in front of the house, talking,
when all I wanted
was for him to be gone,
far away from me.
I paid my dues though,
hiked up my pants
and smiled as he spoke
and agreed when he wanted me to.

He wasn’t standing in the shade;
eye squinting in the bright light
so that he kept looking down
at the sidewalk, for respite
from the glaring sun
That is when he saw it,
this little ant,
crawling on the hot concrete
about four feet from him.

I saw him see it,
saw him walk over to it,
and I watched
as he pressed the toe
of his shoe into the ant,
killing it
and leaving its body to bake
in the summer sun.

I saw him smile
as he looked back up at me,
I was made a silent accomplice to the fact.

He was a god of ants in that moment
and I was to remain silent;
was his sin greater than mine?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.