Factual Parable

In the morning, after the usual ridiculous,
Quickly and best forgotten dreams,

One dream vision fragment remained,
Waiting, for the small child and her father

To discover beside the rented bathroom sink.
A spoon left on the vanity was a bed, black

With carpenter ants, crowded like sleeping
Children in a communal loft, like prisoners,

Like refugees in the shallow bowl of a boat.
The daughter noticed them. The father lifted

The spoon by the handle. The bedded ants
Did not stir. The little girl laughed to see

Such sport, a cluster of ants like raisins
Run away to sea. Motionless. The father figured

They must be dead. When he set them down
On the counter again, the spoon exploded

With calligraphic scurrying in every direction
Away from the spoon, thoughts scattering.

The girl shrieked with delight and chased
The evacuees with finger-thumb pincer nails,

As some ran up the walls and some ran down
The drain of the sink. Another minute, gone.