How Does it End?

by Tova Hinda Siegel

Ants lay dead on the floor 

in my friend’s bedroom.

Her skirt is grey, or maybe black.  

She can’t tell.

No zipper can make the fit

though it moves 

back and forth

and the cows cross the road

bellowing 

in the attempt.

Moths settle on the inviting wool.

Metamorphize 

beyond youth and rainbow.

Time and sound invite me 

to review the moon’s red halo,

settling into the night 

of swirling wind.

Before their death

they marched around and back

and I think of friends

up and down, in and out

of my life, moving in concentric circles, 

diaphanous, though a glass of wine

would keep them,

would hold them still, 

keep them from sliding,

keep them from drifting into the circle

before the drift of drifting pulls

like the gravity of a black hole

and fills till empty, 

with a speed rivaling light

or death 

or breakfast eggs.

The cry of the mother dove deprived

of her fledgling, echoes in the hollow.  

Feathers, beak and dead still open eye,

I bury it in the garden.

The nest stays empty but for an occasional

visit from the father

who never settles but stands vigilant on the edge.

Then he too leaves.

The ants become dust

only to be swept

into the same dirt 

that holds the days dead dove

safe from hungry flies wanting

food for their maggot offspring.

* * * * *

Tova Hinda Siegel’s work has appeared in Salon.com, I’ll Take Wednesdays, On The Bus, and several anthologies.  She holds a BA from Antioch University and an MS from USC. A midwife, cellist, mother, grandmother and great grandmother, Tova has studied with Jack Grapes, Tresha Faye Haefner, and Taffy Brodesser-Akner. A mother, grandmother and great grandmother, Tova and her husband live in Los Angeles.