The Flood

[Philatone]

V. 5

A glance through the window
frames an exodus of drones,

pearls of larvae in their teeth
as they desert the trenches

skirting the apartment
for higher ground,

a hollow handrail,
a lifeless palm.

Look at them, ablaze
in straws of sun,

waiting for a storm to pass
and water to lower like a bridge

while our blinds are open,
embracing thunder

as afternoon fumes
into grey and into black.





V. 4 on suggestions made by billy and addy

flood

A glance through the window
frames an exodus of drones,

pearls of larvae in their teeth
as they abandon their earth

beneath the apartment
for higher ground,

a hollow handrail,
a lifeless palm.

Look at them,
in reach of straws of sun,

waiting for a storm to pass
and water to lower like a bridge

while our blinds are open as daylight
fumes into grey and into black.









V. 3 adjustments based on suggestions by billy, addy, and penguin


Flood


A glance through the window frames
the exodus beneath the apartment;

pupae and queen hoisted
above soldiers and drones,

scattering in files
from sculpted caves

for higher ground,
a hollow handrail,

a lifeless palm.
A colony in reach

of strands of sun
waits for rain to pass

and water to lower
like a bridge. See them

through the pane
embracing the same storm

with blinds open as daylight
fumes into grey and into black.






V.2. complete rewrite

They pass the halls of root and stone
jaws opened weeks before.

Pupae, eggs, larvae, queen
a head above the soldiers, drones,

scattering in files
from sculpted caves
for higher ground,

a hollow handrail,
a lifeless palm.

A colony in reach
of strands of sun

waits for storms to pass
and water to lower
like a bridge. See them,

through the pane
dotted with drops of rainfall,

blinds open as daylight
fumes into grey and into black?


V1.
The walk upstairs to the apartment
is accompanied by the pulse of water
herded into the complex pool, already filled.
The landlord left the tap on somewhere
to leave residents with the echo of overflow
soaking a border of mulch with chlorine.

It has happened before. The water avoids the front steps,
choosing, instead, to seep into the pebbles
beneath the beige of shredded wood.
No tenant finds a need to phone an idle office,
or worry of damage to their stoop, or peek through blinds
to witness the drying of the flood. To be perfectly honest,

only the sight of ants grabbed my attention,
hand stumbling onto their escape along the rail.
White shells of the young on their backs, they file
away from tunnels once eaten into the earth
the way rain eats into stories of creation and rebirth,
myths of the saved and the plunge of the sacrificed.