Another Cockroach On The Floor and a Spider's Web Over The Bed

Another Cockroach on the Floor and a Spider Over The Bed
a lament by Angela Lansbury

I am barefoot in the bathroom
There's a cockroach on the floor
Which is worse, running or still -
Between me and the door?

If there's one thing I don't like
It's a spider on the bed
I'm sure its bad for flies
But now it hurts my head

Right now things would be better
If one of us were dead.

When I see a spider's web

Lurking empty overhead

I wonder where the spider's gone

It's bound to show, before too long

If I stay still and look around

Inspecting walls, ceiling and ground

Brooches shaped like beetles I don't like a bit
What use is a cockroach, a mosquito-ridden lake
Though I'm prepared to eat a pig-shape chocolate
And I've had round salmon-pink 'steak' from a cut-up snake

But another thing I don't like at all
Is ants on a table or desk
Although a gecko which eats them is useful
Up the wall, like me, devouring pests

We have filled the floor with insect traps
We're choking on insect spray
It's another day in the tropics
But neither they, nor I, will go away.

I read somewhere that cockroaches

Have survived a million years

Frankly a single insect, now

Is enough to tug at my fears

I can throw it through the window

Pretend I did it a favour

I didn't kill it - it might come back

Thinking I am its saviour.

-ends-