Flying Ants Drawn to Water

Flying ants

swarm before rainstorms

when father’d have older brother

fetch a plate of water,

wood clogs dragging

tak-tak through the kitchen

Father climbed chair and table

unhooking the wire

so the bulb swung low

Mother killed

every other light

as we’d crowd

the one bare bulb

they flew toward,

ant after ant,

our eyes flaring

with our baffled grins

Years ago,

like an ant,

father found

his own plate of water

and we left the old place,

no more clacking clogs

My son and small daughter ask

was it grandpa’s trick?

I say nothing

but call for a plate of water

Grandma’s at the center of the room

as I open all the windows,

switch off all the lights

No rainstorm

no flying ants

but we’re glad

to light a lamp

drawn close to water,

hear grandma talk

of childhood, the soft swish

of her palm-leaf fan

The children’s eyes

like ours

oddly flash and narrow

This plate of water,

here or there?

Like flying ants

we come, we go

around the light,

beneath it

rippling in the water

our own gaze,

those eyes

that rippled once

rippling now