with each flip of the light, i search for them, still.
my eyes scan the tile, carpet, walls . . .
a laser beam seeking, my first line of defense.

in that treehouse home, we called them palmettos;
i just couldn’t admit they were r-r-roaches,
lurking in my toiletries, racing from the light,
holding me couch hostage, knees to chest, when the brave one ventured from the bathroom.

i no longer expect to find them, but i check just the same.
there are things i can’t forget, and i wonder when they’ll escape me.

i could see an older me, three houses from now, these sharp bug breaths replaced by fingers fumbling for light on the wrong side of the door frame. the past revealed in reflexes.

will they soon slip away, or just lay cement
for countless other quirks,
as each address layers bricks on my forever home?

from this home with the hatdoor, we take a bus to the city.
craving big city beauty and culture like coffee, we fill up to exhaustion and fidget all the way home.
home, for now, where the bug du jour is a pennsylvania stink bug.

i jump when i spot one, but sigh in relief:
bugs these days . . . they’ve got nothing on those palmettos.