Poem to a Cockroach

Going through my father’s papers, I came across a poem I wrote in about 1980.

It was an homage to the Robert Burns poem “To a Mouse“:

TO A ROACH WHO JOINED ME 
FOR DINNER AT AN ELEGANT RESTAURANT

Omnivorous, fat, and brazen bug,

Making this tablecloth your rug,

Stirs there no panic in thy thorax

Of Roach Motel, Bug Getter, Borax?

Of anthropocentric folk who’d like

To stop your crawling with a spike?

Would you restore the social union

Of Man and Nature in communion

Here amidst the silverware?

Roach bold! Roach brave! Roach debonair!

Roach feasting on my butter stain,

My olive pits, my spilled champagne!

On tabletop where all can see

We’re joined in sweet ecology,

Blattidae blessed, ever friend!

But brotherhood’s boring. Crunch!  The end.

–Richard Conniff

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