New Poem: Thoughts

In 1997, my house burnt down and while it was being rebuilt, my father's insurance company rented a house for us in which to stay.  This poem was inspired by a memory of that time.

Thoughts

Many a vague, elusive roach I’ve often felt

Move unseen beneath the burners of the stove,

Scuttle clockwise down the kitchen sink

Over the places it had loosely dwelt,

Back to some damp, unreachable alcove.

And in so feeling, I would often think

Of how, being nearly at the end of wit

And tired of the quiet company I kept,

One night, resolved quite hastily to wrap

A two-by-four in duct tape and lay it

Purposely by my bedside as I slept.

The next morning I found alive, my trap

Teeming with the pulse of legs that once could

Creep from some dark crevice of cabinet wood

And, ingeniously I took with little skill,

The living board out back and beat it still.