Ants
By Ravi Shankar
One is never alone. Saltwater taffy colored
beach blanket spread on a dirt outcropping
pocked with movement. Pell-mell tunneling,
black specks the specter of beard hairs swarm,
disappear, emerge, twitch, reverse course
to forage along my shin, painting pathways
with invisible pheromones that others take
up in ceaseless streams. Ordered disarray,
wingless expansionists form a colony mind,
no sense of self outside the nest, expending
summer to prepare for winter, droning on
through midday heat. I watch, repose, alone.
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I am always depressed the day after a vacation, and having to do piles of laundry is only one reason -- they got done pretty quickly and I folded them watching a Voyager episode with Daniel that I had all but forgotten ("Eye of the Needle"). I miss the beach! Otherwise it wasn't a bad day -- I posted a review of Deep Space Nine's "Tribunal" and took a walk once the rain let up.
We had dinner with Adam's girlfriend at my parents' house, then came home and watched Captain America and the most recent Hulk, both of which are due at the library tomorrow. I liked the former better than the latter, though I liked Hugo Weaving much better when he looked like Hugo Weaving and I wanted Liv Tyler to be a brilliant scientist instead of, well, a girlfriend. Some beach photos:
