Item

was in the newspaper
where even the smallest ant
could read it when the
garbage goes out
but when I read it
slightly slumbering
on the couch it said
Elaine Davis graduates J.D.
and will take her small type
bar exam during mosquito season.
It bit me that Elaine
would never know
what I knew
how my mother and father
had befriended her father
anonymously in the ancient time-
can there be any rank of time
before ones knows?
Her grandfather worked for my father
and the only connection in all this
is I have something to remark
about this news item
and have no one to tell it to
except small ants in graves
who won't listen when I visit them.

by Henry Burt Stevens