Rational Fear of Cockroaches

by Helena Bell

 

Mama once bit a cockroach,
wondered if his legs crunched
delicious as rice-crispies in smooth
chocolate oval.

The critter twitched, slithered
to her belly, scratched the lining
of her liver, intestine, uterus.

He sat there for decades, watched
me growing. His legs poked,
marched across my arm nubs,
unformed chest, to gnaw
on nose, eyes, tongue.

I was born with nibble marks
in fresh pink flesh he thought
creamy, sweet as peach ice cream.

 

© 2006 Helena Bell

A New Orleanian by birth, Helena Bell currently resides in Carbondale, IL where she is working towards an MFA in poetry at SIU. Her poems have appeared in Strange Horizons, Ideomancer, and on her grandmother's refrigerator.