Dorianne Laux
We saved our money and sent away for it,
the red plastic frame, the clear plastic maze,
packaged sand siphoned into a slot, then freed
the ants into their new lives, little machines
of desire, watched them carry the white grains
and bread crumbs—zested flakes
of tangerine peel, odds and ends
we thought our ants might like– late
into the night beneath a table lamp. Sweet
dynasty. We bent our queenly ten-year-old heads
over their busy industry in 1962, Uncle Milton’s
personal note of thanks unfolded on the floor,
while underground the first nuclear warhead
was being released from the Polaris submarine,
and Christmas Island shook, shrouded in a fine
radioactive mist. And our mother sang
her apocalyptic gospel to anyone who’d listen,
the navy housing’s gravel lots shimmering
with each sonic boom, began a savings account
for a fall-out shelter she said she knew we couldn’t
possibly afford. The poor will die, she told us,
Who cares about us peasants? To them
we’re only workers: dependable, expendable,
and then thrust her middle finger up
into the oniony kitchen air. The ants died
soon after, one by shriveled one, then in clumps;
they looked like spiders with all their legs
and antennae sticking crookedly out
from a pea-sized knot of ruined bodies.
She was reading Fail Safe between loads
of laundry and we were reading Uncle Milton’s
cheerful instructions. Some questions have
no answers. That night we listened to the silence
occupy our room. We slept together in one bed,
heel to heel, head to head. We tunneled deep
beneath the covers and waited for the light.
Dorianne Laux’s most recent books are The Book of Men and Facts about the Moon (W.W. Norton), recipient of the Oregon Book Award. Laux is also author of Awake, What We Carry, and Smoke from BOA Editions, as well as Superman: The Chapbook and Dark Charms, both from Red Dragonfly Press. Her poems have been translated into French, Italian, Spanish, Korean, Romanian, Dutch, Afrikkans and Brazilian Portuguese. Her selected works, In a Room with a Rag in my Hand, have been translated into Arabic by Camel/Kalima Press, 2009. She teaches poetry at North Carolina State University. First appearance Gulf Coast Magazine.
