On Meeting an Ant Midway across the Floor

I work down
from the top shelves
to the lowest
soon to the floor itself
where with wet sponge
I crawl my destiny
like others I meet along the way.

One stops,
its black ovals wired fast,
the last of a long line
stretched out like pack horses
down canyon trails.
At first we only stare
then move closer where we scan
for sameness, examine appendages
like medics.

Sounds are floated.
Garbled, they are hard to understand.
Then childlike
I jabber echoes in return.
They soon match,
break open upon one another.

We begin to talk,
to reveal ourselves.
We tell each other our burdens.
The endless task of movement,
the up and down of summer.
Of objects that fall from the sky
and spring into air again.
They move us off course
and crush dreams underneath.
Streams we drink from burn.
The forage we live on fevers.

Now, others continue by.
Pause, they join us.
One is my neighbor.
We recognize each other.

They ask us along
to visit awhile,
to share the weight of distance.

A huge crumb is placed in my mouth.
Another is lifted on my back.
My pockets are filled bulging.

They begin to move
across cleaned tile. And I,
I fall in line.

John Fitzpatrick

John Fitzpatrick c ompleted a 2004 poetry residency at Vermont Studio Center. He received the 2003 Hackney Literary Award in Poetry, given by Birmingham-Southern College, AL. Since 2003 his poems have taken honors in City Works, Mad Poets Review, Confluence, Taproot Literary Review, and Clark College 2004 Writers. Other poems have appeared or will be forthcoming in The Mid-America Poetry Review, The Cape Rock, Plainsongs, Asphodel, California Quarterly, & others. His 2000 New York University dissertation for his Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Arts and Humanities dealt with the poet as creator and reader responder.