The outdoors
with its careless wings and scavenging feet
invades through the brick and wood
and breathing spaces of my July home.

Hidden passageways open their secret doors:
grasses, crumbs, and damp dark spaces compel
the frontier crossers, oblivious
to my imagined boundaries.

Sheep come through the rail fence
spiders decorate the ceiling corners
ants and earwigs by the dozens
trace pathways for their friends.

And the tiny winged ones occupy the air,
living their short lives until they fall
to the sill, casting long shadows
across the polished wood where I sweep them up.

A saviour, I scoop the insects
out and out and out. My kitchen cloths lie strewn
across the deck while small, unwilling tourists
ponder their new landscape.

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