Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

I pull out a drawer to get my toothbrush--
kee-rye! there's a 3-inch monster eating it
A fragment of bristle lies on the lining
(a page from an old Fiji Times
half-shredded too      what a digestion)
As I lean near he freezes
watching me somehow
from under the dark oval of his carapace
Some kind of shiny beetle? vaguely fam--
flash! at the first twitch of my arm
vanished thru that tiny crack at the back!
(how does he do it?)
leaving a cloud of suspicion an outhouse whiff
over my hairbrush too
A cockroach sure I'd seen plenty
but they were brown smallfry
scuttling in the lobbies of Toronto walkups
in Basque bedrooms or haunting
pissoirs in Nice, TV sets in Manhattan
but this was something for Asimov
a sci-fy mutant smoothly taking us over
I shouted for Fred the patron

He's Tahitian  half-French   the logical half
makes his trips on reality
gets really high on atheism
        Granted msieu Birnée a cockroach
        even here in Levuka
        the genus is planet-wide   In my Legion days 
        they followed us across the Sahara
Riding their own camels I'll bet
        That I did not see msieu
        In Fiji it is clear they grow large
        but you must know that a mere million years ago
        one species extended half a metre at least
        However none will bite you
You know damn well Fred these things are--are filthy
        C'est vrai   un  moment
        I am fetching my can of airesol

After ten minutes Alua found it for him
& he was back vaguely spraying the porch wall
my bureau my slippers
        A special mix msieu  "Fine Mist" & choloridane
        it wont kill them quickly what will?
        but they will perhaps mistake it for an apéritif 
        when they begin eating the wallpaint & the wood
        both of which they like
        Ah how cheaply we could live
        if we had such assimilation
        if we could treat toothbrushes 
        (& your paste too I see)
        as merely desserts
Apéritifs I snorted So what they do for tablewine?
smoke pot? (Fred looked blank)
You know like those cucarachas in Mexico
He did not blink his pale eyes
had come alight with science
        Let us leave folktales aside & I will tell you: 
        just once I left my inkwell uncovered
        I found it dry & two bugs beside it
Dead?  I had to ask  Fred shot a jet under the bed
        Non msieu but very drunk
        I think for them ink is a cognac
I slid him the rattan stool & lay back on my hammock
Fred sank clutching his weapon He was just starting:

        C'est merveilleux n'est-ce pas
        how adaptable these roach? 
        Leathers & woods for entrées
        my white paint by choice for sauce
        But my spray you see it taste for them like piss
        (which is their true vin ordinaire you ask about)
        They like it too much They die of alcoölisme 
        If one could afford enough to spray everything
        all would go. . us too perhaps (he shrugged)
But arent there safer ways? I asked
faster ones anyway As you know
soon I must return to Canada   Fred got up
        Une question intéressante oui
        et ayant des raisons suffisantes msieu
He tiptoed back beside my haunted bureau
one hand on can
wrenched the other topdrawer wide open-
there were two even bigger & blacker
dining on the guesthouse's one Gideon Bible
--spplssht! he got them for an instant in his jet
before they split into their fourth dimension
Fred handed me the can sat & drew out his pipe

        Keep it msieu Birnée
        you will feel more en garde at least
        These are the big Asians Blatta orientalis 
        most nimble as you see & (he lit his pipe)
        they wont take fire you know
        or choke in smoke or drown
An idea seemed to hit him He eyed me solemnly
        I could write perhaps the Gideon compagnie
        to bring me more Bibles
        In time the digestion of these cafards
        would be ruined by so much religion 
        However meantime those two cockroach
        they shed their carapaces
--the devils! (I broke in) & grow clean ones?

        D 'accord (Fred raised a crafty finger)
        but they eat the old backs I sprayed
He looked then so smug & encyclopédique
I had to needle him: But dammit man
you cant go round wrenching drawers open all day
What about those you never see? I got up
& pulled out all the others      Nothing
except   yes   that sewer smell

        Ah! les autres Fred murmured almost fondly
        Patience is necessary acceptance even 
        There is a whole book about les blattes
        You have read it perhaps? Non? (He puffed his pipe)
        It says they were here 350,000,000 years ago
        --some time before us it seems--
        In the Carboniferous Age 800 species already
        They are a good design a model to last
        like outriggers you might say or pipes
        Now there are 1200 species
What the hell's their secret, Fred?  Just toughness?
        That yes (Fred was on his feet again
        the lecturer at climax) but even more
        they thrive on what the world has most to give

        on shit    especially ours
        & as you know we double our production 
        every 50 years now
So how come they havent solved our sewage problems?
        No doubt they will but maybe solve us too
        for they are most nourished it seems
        by parthogens of polio they find in our debris
        & as for germs of cholera & typhoid
        it is possible they use them as aphrodisiacs or--
        (just then Alua called him from the kitchen)--
        at least as genetic stimulators
        It must be coffee time you will join us?

Before I did I flipped open every drawer again
Of course nothing except the stink (mephitic now)
I took out all my gear & threw the airesol
in the bottom drawer & the Gideon after it
It may not happen in my lifetime I thought
as I closed the bureau firmly
but if humans survive another century
they'll have to land here fighting 10-foot Crotons
Christian roaches armoured for crusade
cucarachas high on lindichloridane as well as grass
& spraying distilled humanicide from every tentacle.