cool morning ants
scurry lightly
across the gutter’s
parched concrete
weave pathways
swerve past
aunts brothers
friends switch
direction
inside
in every cell of me
I have lodgers
I am their concrete gutter
their garden
they are not me
but share me
rent me occupy
the strata title unit
the granny flat
they raise their families here
generate my energy
without them
I cannot think this thought
or move my typing fingers
I cannot
breathe and
inside their every cell
ants too have mitochondria
gum trees
are unthinkable without their chloroplasts
lodgers every one
with their own green language
their symbiotic histories tracing back
to deep antiquity via
the long-lasting intimacy of strangers