Poem 534

Supposing envy might be the reason for our enmity to the cockroach …

Polemic

To think we can wipe out life
on earth is pure conceit
when the purple rain or whatever comes
the cockroach will be undisturbed
life's most successful adapter
far outstripping us in withstanding heat
cold tolerance of radiation
breeding around any insecticide
going without water eating wood
if it has to or the skin of grease
on metal

our ruined world will be the cockroach playground
thriving across the nuclear winter poisonous
air and water the starvation
                                                         of everything else

against this picture we have only spite
uniquely human
the crushing of every cockroach
that breaks cover before its time