myrmidons

who am i to disband the ants?
we are all born of a colony. 
zeus with his echo fingers & coin-laden teeth
telling me, "come forward."
i saw my folds compress.
skeletons into skeleton. still, at night,
when the fire talks my old language,
i remember what it was like to have fragments.
to build the ant hills & lift 
the dead flesh of animals into our city. 
now, i open my palm to shadows. i ache 
with the desire to search out sugar.
to devour a rose & tell no one.
i was created to be a warrior. to destroy until
the sky falls down in stained glass eyelashes.
hungry as any child though, all i dream of is sweetness.
the legs i was & two legs i have become.
my fantasy is my unraveling. the exhale 
of becoming soil & escape. instead, 
i must hold tight to this body. it is a man's body
or so i am told. i often wonder
if i would have preferred to be a woman.
how do you make peace with one form
when you are myriad? i sometimes 
catch my reflection in a pool of water.
i think to myself, "there we are, the ants
of the island."zeus feasts on the guts of 
a fallen wing. tells us, "you are 
my perfect workers." whenever 
he departs i take that time to weep. 
pluck a flower from the water's edge
& eat it fast as i can.