Roach

She was the weird old lady
who lived downstairs
and coaxed cockroaches from the split
crown of a rusted pipe and cracks
behind the sink.
She sung and they surrounded her
in spirals, marching in whirling quadrills.
She would spit a note
and an onyx-scaled tray of glistening chitin
scuttled to the front door
seething through the catflap
to retrieve her morning pint.
She would whistle - phweep -
and they dragged
a shawl across her gnarled shoulders.

After the bomb fell
they were the first to emerge;
one crawled from her mouth,
her slack blue lips sliding over its abdomen.
Its antennae twitched;
as it scuttled across her supine body
a second emerged, slick with spittle,
then a third, a fourth -
soon the waters broke.
They were a tide.