They know that death is merely of the body not the species, know that their putrid chitin is always memorable. We call them ugly with their blackened exoskeletons, their wall-crawlings as we paw at them. Extreme adaptability, we say. And where there’s one there’s probably a million more who lie and laugh in cracks close by. At first they seem so pitiful and base feeding on what we leave behind. Content to watch us watching them, their hidden grace is endless procreation: it keeps them constant, believing they’ll live to read our requiem with the godlike eyes we used to look at them.
Poem from Consolation Miracle, reprinted with permission of Southern Illinois University Press