They rustle toward you in the dark,
their legions cutting through a mountain trace,
nosing upstream along a bank,
or filing through a basin like red ants,
aware that patience is the way to luck,
the only way to find you in the end.
You can’t dissuade them, so give in:
put out some milk or water in a bowl,
a tantalizing morsel that will give them pause.
Pull up a chair, rehearse your speech.
It doesn’t matter if, at last, you fail
to ward them off: it’s how you greet them,
smiling or with frozen lips and jaw,
your eyes like lightning or a low-watt bulb.