‘Twas the night before Christmas
and a roach lay before my neighbor’s door.
He lay there as if dead for a day,
before I noticed that one leg still groped for the floor,
and his antennae probed the air.

Four days later he lay there still, now dead for sure
no longer before the neighbor’s door,
for the neighbor had kicked him down the hall.

The janitor refused to remove this refuse,
and so the roach decorated the bare tile floor
for a few days more.

Until today, when a resident took it upon herself
to fiercely attack the unmoving roach
with a good dose of insecticide.

“But surely he’s long dead?” I asked
as she filled the hall with the perfume of poison.
“I saw his leg move!” she replied,
and ejected an extra spritz
into the hall garbage room
for good measure.