by Desmond Hearne Morrey | Poetry | Spring 2021
I
I am following an ant,
watching its shiny black carapace
scuttle, (patriotically), into battle.
II
I’ve read that they smell each other
(or, whatever an ant’s understanding of smell might be)
and separate themselves from the enemy with olfactory banners.
I myself having no scent of war,
am invisible.
III
My friend tells me:
“Spiders are fine, they
don’t know
that they’re creeping around
on a creature (a person,
a whole subjective unit)
But centipedes
will fuck you up.”
IV
The color of the world (on bright days)
differentiates things, and I find joy in their multiplicity.
The same light reflects, refracts, many times, many ways,
and I touch these borders of brilliance,
grasp and rip them from each other, and
set them up in a little row.
One thing, two things, three things…
V
A ladybug lands on a poem. I am
fascinated and so
I drop a cookie crumb to her. She
finds it, tastes it, and
the sugar is too sweet,
too much, and she
runs in circles over it.
(I, on the other hand,
have eaten the rest of the cookie)
VI
They say (my professors)
that we must start with nothing (the empty set),
and then continue to add (and
rephrase, and bound, and contain) itself,
and this is how we reach
infinity. We start with one
leaf, and find another
and soon we have collected
everything (and more).
VII
If I flew away from here (on gossamer wings)
and turned back, would I see
so many colors? The bright reds of
autumn leaves, the grays and
yellow lights of urbanity?
VIII
I say
that I walk across poems and
do not know if the land I love
is a creature, and do not know
when one ends
and two begins.
Wilder Voice Magazine 