Camp counselor's trick:
pop an ant,
wriggling between finger forceps
into mouth.

Make sure to smack lips
as the formic acid
tingles on your tongue.
The kids are charged
with gross spectacle,
the more aardvarkian, the better.

# # #

Trained as a journalist, Ellen Wade Beals, writes poetry and prose. Her work has appeared in literary magazines, in anthologies and on the web. In 1999, her short story, "Picking," was awarded Willow Springs fiction prize. Her poem "Between the sheets" appears in the textbook Everything's a Text (Pearson, 2010). She is editor and publisher of Solace in So Many Words, an award-winning anthology.