The Wrath of Achilles |
Issue 16
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“Go to the ant and be strong.”
Fingernails appear to grow on the dead, looking to some like life after death. It is, rather, the deliberate process of death, the wasting of the flesh around the nail plate. Kamikaze pilots cut their fingernails before their missions, sending the clipped nails to their mothers for remembrance, and the family tomb. I ponder these fingernail facts as I clip mine on a park bench, and watch an ant carry one away. The nail sways above the ant like a spar on Charon’s boat. What the ants back home will do with my nail I know not. Perhaps it could serve as an arch to enlarge the anthill. Or perhaps these Myrmidons have their own Dr. Frankenstein, who would do one great thing: create a being to fortify the commonality, providing help in modifying habitats, tapping resources, and defending the colony against their enemies. A Prometheus of the emmets, a fallen angel desiring utopia in life beneath the soil. Harmony underground. Until the muffled drums of war sound and the plain is repopulated with warriors, locked in the mandibles of loyalty, fierce and bristling for battle. Everything now is more beautiful, for we are doomed. The sun sets behind the trees. That once underfoot is underground. Like us, ants bury their dead. |
Robert Witmer has resided in Japan for the past 46 years. His poems have appeared in many print and online journals. He has also published two collections of poetry, Finding a Way (2016) and Serendipity (2023). A third book, Sunrise in a Rabbit Hole, will be published in 2025.
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