Bait and switch
The ants march in, the ants march out. Across my kitchen countertop. In the morning with squinting eyes I can barely see them tiptoeing around the coffee pot. Little black ones. Tiny, really. Nevertheless...the ants march in, the ants march out. Hundreds of them. I go to the hardware store and purchase Raid brand Ant Baits. Raid, you know, kills bugs dead. Says so right on the packaging. Ant baits are tidy little houses of poison that fit snugly in corners where the ants march in, the ants march out. The ants carry the poison to where they breed. Soon, I am promised, they will be gone. The Raid company has put its best chemical engineers on the job. They guarantee success. They wear lab coats. Thank heaven for Raid brand Ant Baits.
In Guatemala there is a jungle house where the ants also march in, the ants also march out. Of course they do. The jungle house has an earthen floor. The Raid chemical engineers just shrug their shoulders: What can we do? The owner of the jungle house is not so bothered by the ants. His jungle house has a thatched roof. Living in the thatched roof are critters. The mice scurry in, the mice scurry out. Rats. Lizards. In. Out. They keep the family awake at night. Sometimes there is a snake up there, too. In the thatched roof. The snake slithers in, the snake slithers out. It eats the mice. It eats the rats, the lizards. Kills them dead. At times, when the snake has been on the job, it is quiet at night. In the jungle house. Thank heaven for that snake.
3:13:03 PM  Poems
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