Go to the Ant

Receive his coppery frame at your door.
Watch his skittish saunter

toward a spot of jam

near the foot of a kitchen chair. It’s six
a.m. The morning light

outside the window

is extraterrestrial and by the
looks of his focused strut

those sideways set jaws,

he’s probably swallowed at least three frogs,
as Mark Twain once put it,

before moving on

to dirty floors. Lil’ do-gooder, would-be
Fortune 500 prize

winner. Did the queen

send you? Why insist on all of this work?
Infinitesimal

aim, with no other

ants to help get it done, like eternity
beats in your ant-sized heart,

moving you along.

Strange how such greatness could be snuffed out by
the swift squish of my thumb.

Amanda Ryan holds B.A.s in English Literature and Music from U.C. Davis and an M.A. in Theology and Letters from New Saint Andrews College. Amanda’s poetry has been published in The Orchards Poetry, Ekstasis, The Christian Century, and Mezzo Cammin. Born and raised in California in the Bay Area, Amanda currently live in Bellevue, WA, with her husband and children.