We stoop to look at ant hills.
Her small finger closes the holes.
Toting their eggs and leafbits,
Ant workers scurry this way and that, unperturbed.
“I break them,” she announces.
In her other hand she holds three straggly
Buttercups and one lupine.
Clovers or Bouncing Bet she tosses aside.
Tickle grass lifts her chin.
“Let me make me laugh, Grammie.”
I upend the stem
To prod a hunting spider, who toad-hops
Into poison ivy.
Her ziplock sandals pursue a narrow
Cement wall, a childsized
Promenade under a hemlock. Last year’s conelets,
Brittle and seedless, cling
To the studs and joists of this cool dark chamber.
Rapelling past its apertures
On slender nylon climbing ropes swing
Casual gypsy caterpillars.
Bon vivants, they have littered the drive with their leavings.
Relentless Jenny erases them,
Stamps them into oily exclamation marks on the tartop.
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