In-Between #13 - Christine Kiefer

Ant Syndrome

There are ants here
in a single file song, a flute
a whole note, a B flat
murmuring across the counter
and occasionally
across my lover's face

The spraying in this house-
it has lasted days

The poison has reached our
tongues and eyelashes
and maybe even our blood
but we just keep telling the pets
to stay away, as if we are immune

To these things I am vulnerable-
the sighs of the ant-hater that is my wife
the genocide fog droplets in the kitchen
the only vapor in these parts
since the beginning
of this long damn drought

Biography: Christine is a 40 year old Midwestern lawyer trying everyday to be mistaken for a cycling poet. She drinks the most expensive beer she can find, as often as she can, and dusty dry red wine when she's trying to be a fancy business associate. She does not trust those that do not drink coffee or that smoke while walking down the street. She once stole a bible from a church and ever since has been writing poems to try to recapture that exact moment when she snuck out through a stained glass window.