I am moved like you, mad Tom, by a line of ants;
I behold their industry and they are giants.
    Derek Walcott

We’re at the White Hotel
I pick up my fork
straight out of hell
and pin down my steak.
Cut it with my knife,
“Father confessor…
Tongue all alone.”
Charle does the same
with his duck.

We feed each other
to practice for heaven.
“That’s enough,” says Charlie.
“There’s only hell.”
A red ant crawls  across
the table as a sign.
We watch him climb the dune
of a napkin, traverse
the desert of tablecloth.

“High yellow of my heart,”
says Charlie, reciting Emile Roumer.
“I had to search for him
as a youth in New York.
This ‘lowly’ Haitian
who raised me up.
This solitary ant
on the table of America.”

The hawkeye waite notices
the ant from across the room
and descends on him
with a silent butler.
“I apologize for the intrusion.
There must be a nest somewhere
that has escaped our exterminator.”

“We were rooting for him,”
says Charlie, “to make it
this once, like Lawrence of Arabia.”

A beautiful woman removes
her coat and enters the room
with an ugly man,
handsome from birth.

“You want dessert?” I ask.
“I can’t decide between the crème brulée
and chocolate mousse.”

Charlie is silent for a moment,
staring into space
through the shadow in his glasses.
He’s grieving the ant,
the beautiful woman,
and heart of the waiter.

“I’ll have some more wine
is all.” says Charlie.
“The cabernet sauvignon.”
There is a draft in the hall 
that blows through the room
that stirs the hem
of the beautiful woman.

“Im trapped here by choice,
you know,” says Charlie.
“Together we’re trapped
in the country of poetry
that’s almost as strange as America.”

The ant returns
with a crumb on his shoulder
and bruise on his head.
We give him cover.
Charlie bounces in his chair
with a small that’s clipped
at the corners.
“We’re on that ant.” he says.
“He is our Atlas bearing us
into the world.”