B. D. Love Roaches Turn on a light, they shoot like sparks from steel and scatter fast as beads from a broken necklace. They’re right to run, because they know full well a drunken god can get supremely reckless. I’m drunk, but I make no apologies. Those bastards stole some crumbs and ought to pay. I like to torch them til they pop and hiss. I’d like to grind them underfoot like like clay, but they have split. Each found some hole or crack and scudded off to save his insect ass. Just kill the light, and they’ll come scudding back. Let’s have another drink. Let’s raise a glass and toast the meek, who will inherit all. Those who survive must first learn how to crawl. CATALOG for my brother Mike Devouring pages out of catalogs— the Sears and Morebucks, Monkey Wards, the rest— at five and six, two boys, two gangly pigs, we gorged on lingerie with special zest. The Freudians may make of this what they must make. The child I was I can’t disown. I wince, I press my chest, but I must say boys will be scavengers. That much is known— and brutes, that too. Mimicking Moe, the Stooge, I found a panties gal one afternoon and bent you toward the luscious subterfuge, then stabbed your ass with mother’s safety pin. Mom merely smirked, though you expected rage. I went on gobbling ladies off the page.