Termination

An Experimental Prose Poem

To Charles Baudelaire

You must surely have been aware,

Then, as we lay in bed,

why I found it difficult

to look you in the eye.

 

Why our blissful peace was shattered

And why we were there, in silence,

Watching the cracks in the ceiling.

 

And this morning,

As I stub out the life of another of

that pesky vermin,

That benighted species,

that invades our home.

That colony of ants,

Which crawl in through the cracks, quietly

Staging an assault on our home.

 

I remember

How you murdered one of them,

Last night.

 

It was my fault, really,

I killed the poor thing, by calling out,

Telling you to be rid of it.

What were you to do, as you flicked it,

From the side of the draining board,

Into the sink, where the last of the water

From the washing up

Was slipping away.

 

I looked on in horror,

As you flicked drops of water

Onto the poor thing,

And urged it to perish.

Finally, you scooped up the water in your hands,

And deposited it on his head,

A waterfall to kill an insect.

 

For a second I was the ant,

The torrent was coming,

And in that fateful second I was glad,

For this torment was at an end.

 

You looked me in the eye, and I glared back,

Unable to express my fury.

And in the slight nod you gave,

It seemed that we understood each other.

 

Then you turned away,

Wiped your hands in a tablecloth

And it was forgotten.