The Nervous System

They all are. It always is.
People live hiding in it.
People are the system’s nerves.

If a system ran itself
Without people secreted
In the arras, in the walls,

Over ceilings, under floors,
That system would be tranquil,
Unperturbed, a circumstance

People inside and outside
Of the system fear alike.
People keep things jittery.

The ones inside the system,
The ones close to the controls,
Know how the outsiders rage.

They quiver in their tunnels
And make the system nervous.
Parasites are nervous, too,

Knowing they might be exposed,
Sneaky buggers, devouring
The system’s guarded stockpiles—

Like pheromonally masked
Larvae consuming ant eggs
Under the ants’ antennae—

Shredded into little bits
The ants throw out in the cold.
And those the system rests on,

The way organisms sway
Upon the good graces of
Hordes of apoptotic cells,

Are nervous that the system
Grows by sacrificing them,
And they should be, since it does.