The Bread Line

Bread lines on sidewalk cracks
start and end with silent smugglers.
Queued, ranks of worker ants scurry
to moist nests in fissures,
valets to white-rice eggs,
nothing matters but next.

Ants begin with burdens
larger than their bodies.
When something needs doing,

she does it – skirting roadblocks,
swerving to avoid gridlock.
Chemical tweets pass possibilities,
direct attention to great need.

Humans on the god-seat at picnics poke
twigs in mounds, ramparts of castle walls,
These Richter-nine earthquakes massacre
the breadline that ants rebuild,
haul waste, and scavenge leftovers
as if nothing feels like war.

Does a brainstorm
in swarm intelligence smell
yellow like a lightning bolt?
A gentle shower of sweated mutualism?

What does a message taste like
that can predict
the genocide of a tribe?

—
Tricia Knoll is a Vermont eco-poet. This poem first appeared n her chapbook Urban Wild (Finishing Line Press).