South

Claire Jorgenson

I was a cockroach he couldn’t kill

So he slid me onto a paper

Put a cup over me and dumped me

In the desert

“Good luck with her,” he told the desert

And the desert’s winds replied

With a fierce “Thank you”

I was unsure about this desert

It was too hot

When the last one was too cold

I’ve since learned

Heat is a good thing

At first I worried

I would burn in the white sun

But after many moments

I realized I was a cockroach

And a cockroach could not die

Even if it wanted to

Now I have accepted

That I have been dumped in the desert

Sometimes its wind

is too cool in the nights

And too hot in the days

And sometimes the wind

Does not come at all

It is flat all around me

And any direction I travel

I make no progress

So instead I have taken

To digging

And I have found the life of the desert

Is below.