COCKROACH CONQUEST

They make their own atmosphere,
A strong bitter smell,
A smell that penetrates, smothers, bites.
A breath from hell.
No fault of their’s,
A gift from God,
A talent out of Darwin.
It serves them well.

Years ago, I was suckered by low rent.
Lots of room.
Armed with scrub brush and broom,
White paint
To mask the dingey walls,
Erase depressing taint.

Enthusiasm and a putty knife
Mined the anonymous black crud
From corners, cracks.
All parts unscrewable unscrewed,
Baptized with alkalies, put back.
Razor blades bestowed virginity on glass.
Dental strategies with a toothbrush
Unclogged lattices.
Cleanliness came to pass.

The great unknown was the nether populace
Lurking in the tunnels
That filagreed the floor and walls and would not show its face
Until darkness took domain.
Then a sound did obtain.
A reverberation like a spectral rain
That aroused me in the hours before dawn.
On, the light.
What a sight!
Eager shuttles, all in brown, avalanched
From every crack and hole. My face blanched.
Bugs, bugs, bugs. I stood
In frozen awe as if made of wood.
I stood until the tickle touch of bug explorers
Came to find what great beast
Would violate their sovereign space,
Their place firmly claimed by insect discipline.
Legs flailing like a dog doused
Thoroughly aware, aroused,
Brush and dustpan in hand
I swept the crowd into a bucket.
I could not massacre these innocents;
My compassion - I could not duck it,
So, out the window , tossing hard,
Exported them to the yard.
The time has come,
(I mollified my conscience)
That they gain a knowledge of the world.
Back to warm bed and sleep I curled.
Battle won, I naively felt.
I had conquered. Victory was wrought.
I’d bought my peace....
I thought.

The second night, undeterred, arrived the second wave.
Their joyful antics were equally frenetic.
Delighted in my place, they judged it copacetic.
Wearily I sent them on their way,
Gave them the gate,
Encouraged them to emigrate.
Each succeeding night I allowed my floors to fill.
Still, I could not kill.
My bucket dispatched the band.
I envisioned in the yard long lines of refugees
Seeking, with a buggy Moses, a glowing promised land.

It did not stop.
It seemed to me there were passages from infinity
To supply these determined creatures to my place.
Somewhere in outer space they had learned to traverse
A black hole.
The entire universe was source
And they converged on me without remorse.

My morality defeated, I invited an exterminator
As my desperation heated.
This innovator stalked my rooms
Enveloped in disdainful smiles,
Squirting poison like a dog
With a defective sphincter.
Nothing in his means
could be distincter --
All in vain.
I would go insane.
There was no deflection of new candidates
To create great new cockroach urban states.

I winced.
It took a month to be convinced.
In every store I patronized their ambience pursued me.
In friend’s apartments
My serenity was minced.
That ghostly odor arose
A miasma to my nose.
‘’Hell!," I thought, "Psychosomatic!"
Something adrift from my mental attic.
Miffed, I accepted that my environment
No longer could be sniffed.
At that point, I knew they had me beat.
My only strategy - retreat.

So, I withdrew for peace of mind.
The cockroach dominates.
For their purposes,
They are flawlessly designed.

© Jan Sand