Laurie Rosenblatt
When it's a question of making my bed, I pull the sheets tight enough to bounce a penny off of as if I've served time in a prison-run factory or founded a military bioweapons lab and as a result have learned to tuck hospital corners and ignore a few things like for instance collateral damage which makes me wonder if anyone else has met a cockroach that lived at least ten years like the one I dabbed with Pink Champagne nail polish smack in the middle of her carapace ten years ago this very day so I'm not surprised when on this our anniversary she's cuddled up next to me upon the made-bed I lie in and just purring away like Miss Mellie the dead cat well maybe not exactly like the cat perhaps more like a gently shaken baggy full of peanut shells which by the way is a really terrible method for getting rid of nutshells because whatever they say a used zip-lock is destined for the Pacific Trash Vortex and now that I think of it an insect that's on her way to immortality is not normal and a gannet probably starved after swallowing that ping pong ball I tossed into the waves last week. But if you're like me your apathy mixed-in with a little bit of love will not let you leave the earth on the day the ships take off to colonize a pristine alien planet. Even so, we can take comfort in knowing the roaches will always remember our species fondly.