The Dissolving Man

It is good to disappear.
Incognito fires extinguished.

And the dissolving man
in a liquid beaker.

As some faraway youth-to-death
occurs in direct proportion.

No knowledge of the other.
Connective tissue long unseen.

A black rubber stop for spillage.
Skyward gazers hand-in-hand.

The falling of a star observed in one place,
is the end of a life in another.

Have You Seen the Ants Carry the Dead Back into the woods?

There is a reason the arsonist is always looking for that spark
the lovers can never seem to find, that least clinical of inducements –
have you seen the ants carry the dead back into the woods?
Like the top half of a chocolate Eclair with all the filling missing,
working in teams like shift work done in miniature;
distance overcome by numbers, father mathematics would be proud;
sweet beard Archimedes rigging up a pulley system
at the University of Syracuse, go Orange!
Or you falling into my arms like a failed land bridge,
these many whirling dervish children
of enduring sweet-toothed minds.

Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage.  His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Bourgeon, TheSongIs.., Cultural Weekly, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.

Image: Judgefloro, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons