‘I am old,’ said the Durac, ‘and riddled with charm,

so I live all alone in The South.’

The Slynog replied, with a sound like it cried

though it moved not a part of its mouth,

‘You are eusocial, Eugene, eugenically broke;

you give over too early to wrath.

You keep seeking the reeking unriddling of All

though you look for it only in Math.’

‘Am I truly eusocial?’ the Durac essayed.

It pleasured him slightly to toy

with the sensible Slynog whose ‘sensitive’ seethed

under bedclothes of logic to buoy

up a billow of bubbles of misapplied thought.

‘I’d have thought that a taut skein of cells

in the skin or the blood were eusocial while I,

like an unaxoned neuron or bells

unadorned by book, candle or swung-about cat,

am waiting alone though we meet.’

The Slynog, who nurtured its own hermit past

with plunges through bloodstreams to eat,

said the Durac was right, and remarked that the light

was marvelous this time of the day.

Then they parted imparted with illusions they’d shared

a moment. Each went on its way.