My Love Affair with the Silver Boy

A solitary figure

Continues to wage his war

Against the sand.  This worker

Is out late, the others already retired.

Charged with guarding the compound

From elements and predator’s alike is

Twisted bits of wood and wire

Fortifying the exterior

The burden of a mature ant.

He is patrolling the Cliffside

Listening for rustling

In the grass.

He hears leaves

Overturned by fluttering

Of a young queen ant.  Female

Calling syndrome, this courtship

His transformation from worker to male

Makes him a morphological monstrosity!

Beyond the biological sciences

The nuptial flight commences

Away from the anthill

I revealed cornflower blue

Eyes, a passion for soccer, signs

Of humanity.  He is a man big enough

To ride my father’s bike.  “part pirate,

part precious metal” sterling sideburns roan

chest and back.  I am telling my own

legend of the silver stallion.

But tertia non datur…

The name Nantucket

Faraway land in the words

Of the Wampanoag. He is a son

Of the Grey Lady and I an aphid

He tended me only for my honeydew