The Poisoner

Single file, they kept coming,
hundreds of them, to eat,
gather, and take back the sweet,
syrupy borax I squeezed for them.
They circled the little circle
of liquid, making a weird flower,
their bodies tiny moving petals.

They had raided our sugar,
gotten in the granola, swarmed
the trash beneath the sink.
Sometimes I’d even find them
dead or sweetly dying, wedged
under the lid of the honey jar.

From the corner behind the toaster,
then along the wall under the window,
for two days they followed the invisible stem
of the same slim trail, back and forth
to the bait I gave them. Then it stopped.

Today there’s the toaster, the window,
and a little liquid disc, sweet and clear—
without a single petal: she loves me not.