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.