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Cockroach

There's a cockroach living in the kitchen
Glistening back, chocolate black
Scuttling prying legs
Stretching out some corner
Its eyes dart around the tiles
Deep and disturbing
Tick, tock, they say
Tick, tock.


It's silent, except at 9:30 PM
When we finish dinner
Then you hear the scuttling prying legs
Squabbling over crumbs
Darting around tiles in frenzied survival
Wriggling mandibules
Tick, tock, they say
Tick, tock.

My father carries him off
Upside down out the back door
His scuttling prying legs wriggle
As his body soars through the air
Landing with a squish in the grass
Swinging antennae
Tick, tock, they sway
Tick, tock.

His great-great-great-great granddaughter, I think
Will see the sun rise
On a human-less planet
Scuttling prying legs emerging
From the blown-up marble
Deep and dreary evening
Tick, tock, she'll say.
I told you so.

-©Estelle Wallis, October 2019

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