my consciousness abandoned you hours earlier.
and when your alarm chimed in the early morning,

you said I hate being up, and there was an ant searching
along the spine of your novel. we watched, for a moment,

before you crushed it with your thumb. crawling up the bedpost
was another. I should have told you, you said. I should have told you.

(originally published in The Broadkill Review, Summer 2021)