On the speckled playground floor,
bits of stone collaging our knees,
we admired a beam of sun
you pointed with your glasses

Did you know an ant can lift
more than 10 times its weight?
That’s how this one on your foot
will carry the one we killed

Science, we called it.
We laughed as the sun concentrated
from cloud to ant
to pavement underneath

We were gods
ants were people
unnecessary suffering, simply that.

I didn’t realize until later —
when I stepped on a cricket
and wanted desperately to apologize.