by Karen Pierce Gonzalez
Cockroach Ode
Dear Bombay Canary, Blattella Germanica,
why am I so reluctant to love you?
I too have found myself picking crumbs
off the kitchen floor, chewing the dead skin
off my calloused heels. I will always feel at home
in the heat of palmetto branches,
age-eaten porches, cardboard hostels behind garbage
cans full of hand-me-down blessings.
I find no shame in carrying what makes me happy
in the moment. I could turn everything I love
to mush and still not be satisfied, forever curious
what waits on the other side
of morning. There could be something delicious
holding space in the shadows,
one small life rebirthed hundreds of times
in a year. I’m too enamored
with my own body to care who watches
me scatter, tasting the direction
of my next incarnation—a hole in the ground
the size of my appetite,
one endless sky of nocturnal fire
burning just for me.
J. Greenberg resides in Western Massachusetts and reads for the South Florida Poetry Journal. Her work has received the Joe Bolton Poetry Award and appears in various publications, including Literary Mama, SWWIM Everyday and O Miami. https://www.instagram.com/jenn_iff_err_.
Karen Pierce Gonzalez is an intuitive artist who focuses primarily on elements found in nature. To date, 55+ art works, including collages in City Companions, a hybrid collaboration with poet Marcelle Newbold that recently won Hedgehog Poetry Press’s Little Black Book competition, have appeared in numerous literary journals/magazines. Six pieces have premiered as cover art for publications such as The Chestnut Review and Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art. A 2022 National Arts Program (USA) feature artist, her 3D assemblage pieces have been shown in several Pacific West Coast galleries and museums.