Insects and Other Creatures

Sometimes a yellow slug
Creeps up the pipe
To where the hole is for the plug.
It looks like some fruit, wet and ripe.
And once I saw a big round bug
Creep up on a fat woman’s neck,
And when she gave a heaving shrug
It slithered off its sweaty deck
And disappeared below.
And parson’s pigs march in a row
Around the parlour floor;
And if behind the organ I might go
I see a whole lot more,
They even sit upon the rug.
There’s ants that scurry in the hall,
And cockroaches upon the wall;
And spiders lurk in corners dim,
And flies buzz in and out,
Bluebottles are about,
And wasps around the jamjar’s rim.
Where horseflies bite,
And bumble bees with hornets drone,
I never am entirely, quite,
And absolutely all alone.

August 1924