Ants traverse my legs, only

when I’m a child. Taking off
my underwear to squat in puddles of brown

mud, letting it in. Walking it through the house
hoping for a smack, squeezing

muddy bravelegs into mum’s thick pleather
boots, she doesn’t wear lightly, doesn’t

understand the message behind a flat
heel like I do. Ants traverse my legs, still

I am five squatting over a full body
mirror to see my arsehole for the first time

to see my future, puckered and mint
I can already clean mud from cheap carpet,

can sacrifice an afternoon of bending
can think of ways to get out of trouble

at least until I’m clean. Ants
traverse my legs, I am thirty, bent

over the same looking glass, looking for something other
than cracked, dried mud. Other than

plastic boots, other than my future
womblike, watching assholes making mud-

puddles from desert sands