Our house has termites. Mike O’Reilly says so.
He shows us pictures of their tunnels.
Says it might be best for us to leave our house
while his company treats them. Treats them.
As though the termites are ill
or in need of treats. So, a few weeks later,
as Brandon from O’Reilly Rid-Pest
is drilling holes and pumping poison in the ground,
DeeGee, our two dogs, and I
are driving down the Pennyrile Parkway,
heading south to see the bison herd
in Golden Pond, Kentucky. “By 1880,
these magnificent animals had practically disappeared
from herds of 60-70 million at their peak.” This I learn
as DeeGee reads from a brochure and we begin
our three-mile drive around the prairie. In the first mile,
we see a vulture. In the second mile, two dragonflies,
six wild turkeys, and a crow. But then we see one,
five, ten, thirty bison coming over a ridge,
crossing the road into a meadow. Cows, calves,
three bulls. One cow wallows in dust. A calf
latches onto its mother. Every few seconds,
it rams its head into the mother’s belly.
She’s lifted off a back hoof.
“When the herd reaches grazing capacity
we sell excess bison at auction,” reads DeeGee.
“Don’t let the calf hear you say that,” I say,
which makes me realize I have little more sense
as to what will happen to me than the calf does to itself.
In the back seat, Dodger growls. On that note,
we drive to Golden Pond Visitor Center. There,
we find a tiger swallowtail dying on hot pavement.
When DeeGee picks it up, to take it into nearby grass,
it falls from her hand and lands on her leg.
It grabs on and clings to life.
I have to take a stick and pry it off.
Four hours have passed since we left home.
Are the termites dying? I can’t say.
But I do know they don’t want to
any more than a bison, a butterfly, or we do
when there is still so much to cling to
before we disappear.
Mark Williams’s poems have appeared in The Southern Review, Rattle, Nimrod, New Ohio Review, and other journals and anthologies. He is the author of the collection, Carrying On. His fiction has appeared in Eclectica, Cleaver, Valparaiso Fiction Review, The Main Street Rag, and elsewhere. He lives in Evansville, Indiana, with his wife, DeeGee.