I’ve diagnosed it with industrialized rickets,
stomach is open and distended
metal is bowed with greenstick
fractures, hard and bendable,
compensating with growth
disturbances and wider wrists.
If I squint enough
there is movement
in permanent metal, micro-movements
as the ants shape sand hills
far from half-buried
fire-hydrants and barely there
Red Hot Chili Peppers
laced with frat-boy yells.
I’ve named it insieme
just far enough away to be together.
It’s body isn’t big enough
for all the purpose that it has.
At some point it’s been welded,
Atomic number 29,
add tin and it becomes 79.
Gold. It’s on fire, comprised
of a thousand tiny synthetic
flames fused together by rust.
It’s too open a place.
It should be found in ignorant alleyways
where half smoked cigarette butts marry
pavement, where brash teenagers go to cry.
The ants make sense though.