Cockroach
I began when the cockroach fell
the cockroach was on the ceiling
the ceiling was in a hospital
the hospital was in a city
and the cockroach on the ceiling fell
underneath the ceiling and the cockroach
were my mother
and her belly
and
inside her belly
me
when the cockroach fell from the ceiling
it landed on the things underneath
my mother
and her belly
the midwife looked from the belly
to my mother’s face
and back to the belly again
and then I was out of the belly
and I was in the room
and the midwife and my mother looked at me
and at the cockroach
and then at me again
under a ceiling
in a hospital
in a city
James Knight is an experimental writer and digital artist. Void Voices, a re-imagining of Dante’s Inferno, was published by Hesterglock Press in 2018. Website: thebirdking.com. Twitter: @badbadpoet