Page 21--The Ants And The Spoons--Taegan Harker

What’s today? The menu for today? Bread and butter for most others,
bottom of the barrel for you, no energy to chisel the wood for any remains.

What’s today again? You have six spoons in your hand,
one for each task you have to accomplish today.

Waken again, even though walking – you have to brush your teeth.
You drop a spoon to pick up the stalk, coat it, punish your gums.

You could be somebody else today, you could be you,
but it’s too many spoons for that,
and maybe you like your spoons,
or maybe they’re stuck to you –
maybe it’s just today at least.

Waken again, you’ve left the water running
and there’s nothing but water in your mouth, now.
Move to the kitchen – you left the to-do list somewhere.

Searching, you lose a couple of spoons in the journey.
One slipped under the sight of the bills,
another into the peak at the top of the garbage.

Instead of your scrawl on paper, every crestfallen line
missing the edge to hint to the passerby,
instead you find ants.

There are ants in your kitchen.
They have come for your food;
it may as well be for the last frays of your nerves.

– and the clock – you need to leave for work –
there’s at least three spoons’ worth of jobs to do there –
talking is one, locking up the other –
is there any way

to beat the ants making their way
laughing to the sacrifices
given to them, not even sugar?

– and it takes too much to sweep them
or even move away, or move the prize,
so you let their bronze etch the kitchen.

Could it be any other way?
You’ve run out of spoons for today.