"What It's Like to Be an Ant" and "Female Anatomy"

What It’s Like to Be an Ant

Your life does not matter
to the creatures in charge.
 
You dwell beneath a fragile hill,
easily smashed on a whim.
 
The shadow of a giant boot
looms everyday over your body
as you carry fifty times your weight.

Female Anatomy

Mayo Clinic says
a woman has a shorter urethra
than a man, giving bacteria
a quicker trip to the bladder.
 
Most women in my era recognize
the symptoms, call a doctor, fix
the problem by the next day.
 
But what about the century before mine?
When a pale yellow stream turning red
could not be so easily reversed
by pills in a bottle?
 
Swallowing my second dose,
pain subsiding, I ponder
what it was like to live without
penicillin in a world where
women and their anatomy
were even more vulnerable
than they are today.