Alate

cottonwood seeds dance Brownian
about a million tiny, shimmering
reversed snowflakes rising off the
patio--alates, termites,
Reticulitermes hesperus, I'd guess
a nuptial flight:
most organisms flood the world with babies
and hope a few survive;
termites force their reproductive
caste en masse from the dark
subterranean galleries that are
the only world the cast outs
have ever known
into the glaring sunlight,
a dessicating world filled with
mouths

the hapless twist in cobwebs
or turn pointless circles on the
concrete, fragile wings
mangled and broken
and still they pour from
clumpy towers and rise like lazy
sparks into the air

, the swifts collapsing chatters overhead

if I owned this house I suppose I would be
alarmed at this surface spectacle that
hints at goings on below
but I am a renter, and moving soon,
and I think I will have another beer
and watch the hummingbirds
hum and go