A Conversation With An Ant Poem by Rusty Gentry

I engaged an ant in conversation at the corner bus stop.
I was patiently waiting for a bus to take me on a much needed trip to the moon:
A fact, I clearly averred aloud, for next I hear
'To the moon? '
I discovered my interlocutor to be a black ant just a bit more than 6'2' below.
'Yes, the moon. That is where the #2 Yellow Line terminates.'
'Must be quite a view, ' pondered my new friend, 'the best I can hope for is to climb high into a tree.'
'Hey, when I was a kid I loved to do that: played Tarzan all day.'
'So, ' queried the ant, 'what's it like, the view from the moon? '
'Interesting question, ' I noted.
'Not particularly, a rather I natural one I would believe.'
'Frankly, I haven't the foggiest notion of the view, ' I replied honestly.
Flushing in confusion as ants do, 'Is this your first trip there? '
'Oh, don't be silly, ' I laugh, 'I've been there half a dozen times or more.'
'Okay, let me get this straight. You say you've taken a bus to…'
'Not always a bus. Sometimes I take Delta. Care for a nibble of this brilliant scone. It's delightfully light and fluffy, ' I suggested as I bend to share my treat.
'Thank you, but to my point, you've been to the moon 6 or so times [six legs, I can do six and six factored by two] and you haven't bothered to admire the view.'
'Assuming there is something to admire, ' I kindly suggest.
'You're skirting the question, you rapscallion, ' contributes the ant with a slightly raised voice and something like a sneer on its face-non-face.
Patiently, I explain. 'You must understand that powerful drugs are administered so as to facilitate the body to radical atmospheric transformations, the red blood cells to their sudden deprivation of oxygen, the list goes on and on.'
With the grin of one about to deliver the coup de grace he asserts more than asks, 'You must awaken at some point. Is that not correct? '
'Well, of course, by then I'm in Brooklyn, again. Right on time, #2 Yellow line, cheerio. Nice passing the time with you. Perhaps you would like the rest of this delicious scone, ' I say to him in farewell and gently lay the pastry down.
As the bus drives off the ant ruminates. 'That character…He just carried on both sides of a conversation, playing both himself and, putatively ‘me, ' the only ant I see. He earnestly believes that he just hopped a bus to the moon, in spite of the fact that he cannot testify, according to the data of his senses, as to ever being any further from Brooklyn than he currently is, because, conveniently, the space acclimation drugs don't wear off until he has returned. What's more, he gave me over half of this delicious, fluffy scone. That cat must be a card carrying lunatic. Are madness and humanity synonymous? Damn, this is a good scone.'

© 1/27/2016