Last Meal

They troop in
from miles around,
I swear,
to these little
hole-in-the-wall diners,
eating like there's
no tomorrow.
File in, then file out.
Amazing how they return time after time,
the menus are so limited.
But they do. Can't get enough.

They walk by a huge billboard
on their way to dinner;
a bright orange background
with giant black letters:
TERRO ANT KILLER
and an enormous picture
of a dead ant.

Some of them look the
other way when they pass it,
but even so, how can they
possibly fail to notice,
in the center of each
paper covered table,
a huge, circular message,
maginified even further
by the crystal dome
of poisoned nectar
covering it:
Place TERRO here.

Mary Ellen Seidel