distance makes the heart

from my vantage aloft
the pigeons radiating
like spokes about some curiosity
in a vacant lot

might be ants swarming
a melted dollop
of august ice cream
on a suburban sidewalk;

children clustered around
a squirrel carcass
daring it with each prod
to quicken and flee
terrified to the nearest tree;

or spermatazoa flagellant and undettered
seeking squiggling admittance
to an egg impregnable as stone.

but elusive figures of figures
negate the naked truth
of the unsettling mortality
suggested by distance;

the benignity of pigeons bowed
to their brunch of bread crumbs,
the industry of ants
enslaved to sucrose imperative,
the ignoble irreverence
of children at play,
the complex biology
of fertilization,

are no more remote
than my pale feet
of a sunday languor
unavailingly vertical
at the foot of the bed.