Life Is a Fluke

One martyr, one fluke only,
Makes its way to the ant’s brain.
The rest will stay protected

In a capsule in the guts
Until the ant is swallowed
By a passing herbivore.

They’ll infect that liver then,
But the pilot in the brain,
Which steers the ant up grass stems

In the cool of the morning,
Back down in the heat of noon,
And, at evening, up again,

Until the ant gets eaten—
Accidentally, with grass—
Or the ant keels over, spent,

That pilot’s doomed either way.
Only its strategy lives
Through the lives of its fellows,

From whom will descend, one day,
Another martyr marching
Up to the brain of an ant.

For now, the pilot’s busy
Signaling this ant to climb
Up a stem, back down again,

Up the stem, back down again.
It takes steady signaling
To properly steer a brain,

And the possessing demon—
As far as the ant’s concerned,
As far as a herbivore’s

Liver will soon be concerned—
Is the hero of the flukes,
Precise to the acid end.