Water-bug

[Brownlie]

I don't think that edit helps the poem.

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Water-bug

I hate cockroaches,
especially the big water-bug types
we have in Austin
that get three—four inches long.
One of the biggest I’d ever seen
was laying in my bathtub on his back.
I thought he was dead.

I had sprayed my house recently.
Every time I do,
I find big dead ones
all about for a day or two.
When I first saw
him instead of picking him up
with toilet paper and flushing him,
I let it go a day. Forgetting.

A day later while sitting on the toilet
I noticed him again,
but this time his feelers moved,
and then as I moved around to see better
his legs started to move about.

Somehow I knew,
that he knew,
death was near.


I finished with the toilet,
and got a piece of paper towel.
He continued to move,
and as he did so
I contemplated catching him
and letting him go,
although I knew he was dead already.
I laid the paper towel over him
and pinched his body between my thumb and two fingers,
and dropped him in the toilet, quickly flushing,

but not quick enough
to keep a small part of me
from dying with him.



–Erthona


©2014

That would be my edit, but i have no strong feeling about this. I came into this topic 3-4 times before deciding to invest time in reading about cockroaches.


Im glad i did, perhaps the poem needs a better hook.

Why keep I hate cockroaches?