Elise Cowen

Elise Cowen [Ahsahta Press]

from Elise Cowen's Elise Cowen: Poems and Fragments, ed. Tony Trigilio:

A cockroach
Crept into
My shoe
He liked that fragrant dark

A cockroach
Climbed into
My shoe
Away from cold & light
I crept my hand
In
After him

Cockroach
            The best I can do for you
            Is compare you to bronze
            And the Jews
            You're not really welcome
                       to use my shoe
            For a roadside rest

Obvious
From the shadow of my hand
You keep coming back
            across my floor
For more? — look —

You've lost an antenna
I treat you
            seriously affectionately as a child

——

And not to forget
            the cockroach
that crawled across
the floor & painted
blue under the stove
somewhere in the [   ]
to God knows where

——

Keep out of the light
Out of the dangerous radiance of
Bong Eyes
Respect the cockroach centuries
And the heavy confection of plunder kitchen

——

Must I move to get away from killing you
And carry to Sutton Place in the back of my mind
            back to San Francisco ants
To get away from you?
I know —
            I'll starve a hungry cat
            And name it Darwin

Angels
            If I crawled into your crack in the wall
            Four clumsy appendages, too dumb to talk
            What would you & your dynasty do?
            Tickle me to death under your indifferent feet
            Teach me to be a makeshift cockroach
            Live off my flesh & use the bones for cockroach walls

Cockroaches
          Prepare
I'm coming in