Reader’s Choice for the FuPo Poetry Contest (2021)
~
Commitment
The story I am finding charming
is, would you believe, about
cockroaches, pairs of them,
an Asian species: Salganea taiwanensis,
and, even stranger, about their taste
for each other, yes actually, slight
cannibalism. No, listen, it’s not quite
as disgusting as it sounds: the pairs
are newly mated, moving into new
homes where they will raise their babies
and they begin by taking turns
chewing on each other’s wings—
eating them down to stubs—each
lying quietly while the other feasts.
And though, yes, I’d find the bugs
disgusting, and hope their new homes
are not near mine, don’t you, too,
see it an endearing way to start a life
together, showing you will never fly away?
~
Ellen Steinbaum is the author of four poetry collections and a one-person play. Her work has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and appears in several anthologies including Garrison Keillor’s Good Poems, American Places and The Widows’ Handbook. An award-winning journalist and former Boston Globe columnist, she writes a blog, “Reading and Writing and the Occasional Recipe” which can be found at her web site, ellensteinbaum.com.