I knew enough
to pick a watermelon for the dead
white thump of it
as it kissed the ground
but leaving as I left
its rind out, ants gathered this line
up my leg. I thought bleach.
I thought the ants might fury a new
constellation: a pale snake
crawling through a dry creek bed
who thought he could eat
everything, eat it clean.
Jacob Sunderlin is a writer and musician who has received support from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, Narrative, Ploughshares, Gulf Coast, and elsewhere. His records Death Ranch and Hymnal are available.