Cucaracha Number Two

In my efficiency apartment
above a garage on Hadley,
I sit on a long bench eating dinner
at a white picnic table
in my narrow kitchen.

A large flying shadow
swoops across the white walls.
"Oh, it's just a moth."
I shrug it off without looking.
Moths are quiet.
This one is buzzing.
I look up and my calm heart
crashes into my ribs.

I shift into overdrive.
A red cucaracha,
longer than my palm
with extra long wings
flies around my kitchen --
a mad bug on drugs.
Quick, to the closet
to grab the broom.
I wrap my hands
around the stick end,
swing the straw end in the air
thrashing the nasty cucaracha
against the walls
shredding it into broken pieces.

Cucaracha Number One

So I turn on the bathroom light,
jump and jiggle as if I saw a ghost.
A big brown one scampers across
my bathroom sink, behind the faucet,
behind the lotion, soft soap, and electric toothbrush.

With my right hand, I pull shoestrings
to take off my right shoe. It stops to hide
behind the soft soap. With my left hand,
I punch my fist against the soap bottle
to squish it against the back of the sink.
Its legs wiggle as it tries to escape.
I press harder a few more seconds.
I let go, thinking it is dead.

It scuttles to the right.
With my right hand inside the shoe,
I tap it to the left to make it fall
over the edge of the sink.
It slides down on its back,
into the slippery basin,
legs squirming like boxing arms
waving in the air with nothing to punch.
I smack it a few times until
its brown guts splatter.
Its stuffy stench wafts up my nose.