ELEGY WITH WINGED ANTS

You think you know. Walk across

asphalt willingly—toes pinched
but you don’t remember
that part. I don’t know

the last time I saw you. If I answered
yesterday, you could have replied.
If I step outside, a thousand ants

will make a mosaic of my face. If the mirror is
too much or not enough
of itself after it shatters.

Jessica Guzman is the author of Adelante (Switchback Books, 2020), selected by Patricia Smith as winner of the 2019 Gatewood Prize. Her poems have appeared in Shenandoah, jubilat, Ecotone, The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day Series, and elsewhere. She teaches at Widener University and lives in Philadelphia.