Mass suicide of ants in my water glass

Every morning

I take a deep gulp of water

From the glass by my bedside table

After the night's drought

My throat is like sandpaper

One day I flick on the lamp

And spy a cluster of periods

punctuating the surface of the water

Probably dust

Or so I thought

Until I realised one of them was moving

It had six legs

These things always happen to me

Like that time a fly flew into my mouth

While I was mouth breathing on a run

Or the time when I found half a worm

In my overpriced salad (I hope I didn't eat the other half)

From then on

I check my glass of water every day

There's always an ant or two

And I wonder

What is it that makes them

Commit mass suicide?

Note:

wrote this when doing The Body Series workshop (June 2020), reading The Omnivore's Dilemma and a few months after the height of the Amazonian forest fires, the Australian bushfires, in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, and generally feeling that everything happening was absurd and at the same time, made complete sense.