The Nest

Before we separated came the story with the ants.

It didn’t seem much to begin with.

They crawled from the cracks between the tiles,

tiny, black, and at first it didn’t bother me.

I left honey and breadcrumbs on the counter.

Drops of water on the floor.

There were more of them in the winter,

marching in the bathtub, on the bed,

they feasted on the dead skin. Irritable, they were.

I watched their slender waist, starched skirt,

poky feelers. I let them be sucked in by the drain.

They lived with us, yet so little we knew about them!

In March, I bought a book and read aloud:

The males die, the non-mating females do the work,

while the queen lives up to thirty years.

We could be dead; she still lives and produces eggs.

If the colony under us was eternal,

I needed to know more, accommodate and accept.

I envy them, I said one evening. So selfless, organised.

An entity. They unite, solve and conquer.

And then in April the ants started to bite.

I was reading, and suddenly reaching for the leg.

Sharp and short-lived was the pain. Again.

I couldn’t prepare. It caught me off-guard.

I was prey by then, I had to admit.

I bought a spray, a gel, a trap. It killed some,

but there were more to come. I dreamed of ants,

there were ants in the closet, the bread I ate,

they crawled in the jar, between the tealeaves.

In my dream, I heard the scraping of the feet.

I was lost. In August, I found the substance.

Excited workers ran and brought it to the nest.

They ate. They fed the queen, the larvae,

and the substance started growing in the gut.

They must have burst. In the silence

of the night I could almost hear the pop.

Later, we separated, and we had to sell the flat,

but I kept the book. Honeypot ants, I learnt,

feed the young workers until their gasters are distended.

These ants then serve as food stores for the rest.

They can’t move, just hang on the ceiling of the nest,

and secrete honey from their enormous, swollen abdomen.

Woods

Branches of oaks loom above me

threatening to fall.

Der Wald. Unkept, disarrayed.

I am lost among the words,

my words, those that I brought,

that I never learnt, only dreamed about,

and others, which budded in the dark,

words of kinship and hatred,

words unfit to speak out loud

and those I use to avoid saying something.

Nouns I use when speaking about others,

and adjectives others describe me with.

I want out of these woods, I want out.

Words are dreck, they were made to shine,

concrete, shadow-play on a lace curtain.

I sprinkle them, like water from the hands,

a droplet on your face, in your eye,

they become sweat or tears. Let them roll.

Strange, plain, embellished or distorted,

my words form in your mouth now, overflow,

beautiful, says he who listens to you,

like a song, and your song it is.

Der Wald. Mein Wald. I want out.

I go quiet, but it looms above me,

threatening to collapse and smother.

If I were to start over in another language,

could I find peace in the silence of the newborn,

or would I reenact my old words again?

The woods close around me,

the oaks begin to fall.