Form–

icivorous, or my inclination to eat nothing
but ants, contains within it the structure
of my dietary habits, which is to say a concept.

I used to eat only vegans; I thought
my cannibalism would do the world a favor.
Then I ate only endangered species

because my ex-lover worked for PETA
and I hated her truly. But this much I can tell
you:Rajah Spiny Rats, Emu River Freshwater Snails

and Chestnut-bellied Flower-piercers all taste
like shit. It’s difficult to be vindictive
when you’re the only one suffering. I am a social

being prone to digest the shape and pattern of
myself: a design unfit for the world
punctuating every construction with

a form uncommon to daily life.
If this is living, cover me with ants and let them
consume me in a way without warning.

Joshua Ware lives in Denver, CO. His first book, Homage to Homage to Homage to Creeley, won the 2010 Furniture Press Poetry Prize and was published in 2011. He is the author of the chapbooks Imaginary Portraits (Greying Ghost Press, forthcoming), Excavations (Further Adventures Press, 2011) and A Series of Ad Hoc Permutations (Scantily Clad Press, 2009), as well as the co-author of I, NE: Iterations of the Junco (Small Fires Press, 2009) and, with Natasha Kessler, SDVIG (alice blue books, forthcoming). His chapbook How We Remake the World, co-written with Trey Moody, won the first annual Slope Editions Chapbook Prize. His writing and collages have appeared ir are forthcoming in many journals, such as American Letters & Commentary, Colorado Review, Conduit, Crazyhorse, Gulf Coast, New American Writing, Third Coast, and Quarterly West.