Ant

I watched an Ant struggling
to pull a piece of silverfish through
a gap in the hardwood.
The segment of the dead
insect was too big
for the passage.
He entered from the top first, pulling
it lengthwise, then width,
sideways, forward.
I thought
I was this ant.

Casey’s apartment: 2007.
No matter how hard
we tried
to get his couch through the front door,
we failed.
Break the legs,
I suggested.
His mother had bought it for him. She died.
He wouldn’t.
I went home that night.
We didn’t get the couch through the threshold.

The ant
had disappeared.
I don’t know if he ever got the silverfish through
the gap in the hardwood or
if I stepped on him in careless thought.

Three days after I went
back and sat on Casey’s couch,
legs intact.
I never asked him how he got it there.