an apology to the crickets 

there are piles of crickets 
talking over each other. they crawl on 
crushed egg cartons in their terrariums
at a pet store somewhere. all that summer i bought
bags of crickets to feed the two toads 
i caught off the side the of the road.
five crickets. ten crickets. the insect-green
of their bodies glinting like an old metal.
the crickets are telling each other stories
of escape. the crickets are praying into
the cage window, not because they 
know they'll be devoured but because they are
unsure what purpose they serve once they're scooped
into plastic bags. they call each other 
all the same name in a language i can't know.
dad once told me that crickets tell the temperature
with their number of chips each minute
& we would stand on the porch counting 
the cricket words. oh rising heat of june.
oh crickets pouring from a slit in the wall
where they were all multiplying. i'm telling you
i have missed the crickets. i have been
trying to get them back to apologize for feeding
them like potato chips to those animals.
what is an animal but a kind of 
movement? i want to fold my legs up
like the cricket--i want to play them 
like harpsichords. my legs are thick & useless
in comparison. i want to drive & buy the whole
terrarium of crickets & let them loose
in the parking lot behind my house.
how their round eyes would glint in 
the morning as it opens. how they would 
tell me that autumn is falling quickly.
i would go out & make an instrument of myself
along with them. when i say i want to be a cricket
i do mean everything that comes with it.
i want the threat of being devoured more
concretely. i want the promise of running.
there doesn't seem to be a place
for a body like mine to run. i crave creases 
& a damp alley way. we dissected crickets 
in 7th grade. we pinned the body down
& poked at the organs with a needle. 
so small & unreadable. grey mush
as if the cricket were stuffed with organs 
just for us & in real life the crickets
might just be empty-- just full of 
gears & air. then yes maybe i am like that too--
a body filled with helium & voices.
the crickets are scrambling on top
of each others faces. each face the same.
i do feel like this sometimes. like there
is a pile of humans & i am stepping 
on faces & the humans are talking into phones
connected to no where. i bought the crickets 
yes i did & would pour them in the terrarium
with the toads. i would pull up a chair
& watch the toads corner a cricket.
waiting totally still & then striking--
tongue to body & one swift swallow.
eat me just like that.