Fill the cracks so the ants can’t infest.
This is the poison applied for feeding:

urine-yellow icky glue sealing lips
to take home to another body. Sometimes

words stick where I open my mouth–
the crevice between us not letting you in.

I, too, have brought small gifts back
underground thinking them an olive

branch. Each attempt kills one way
or another. Malignant misinterpretations.

I return with this pellet of words.
This killing I never meant to witness.

 

(originally published in Abstract Magazine, Fall 2017)