Along with two chameleons
the pet shop owner sold my parents mealworms
in a cardboard takeout box
(the kind for extra rice or eggroll)
to keep in the refrigerator
they writhed and curled up like SpaghettiOs
but if I pressed one with a thumb
it felt resistant, hard to smash
dumped in the tank on a chest of drawers
they squirmed untouched
lizards darting past them on the sand
running up against the glass
stretching tiny claws to climb, escape…
with a rolled-up copy of the New York Daily News
my father flattened flies that swarmed
in Biblical warning
on the walls outdoors
of our brick-covered box
he threw their corpses at the lizards
who swallowed them then stopped
he tried the crickets chirping in the basement
(crickets he later massacred
pouring Chlordane
in the cracks—
poison mixing
with the heavy smell of fuel
that seeped in through our windows
from the earth
beneath the next-door gas station)
the lizards’ mouths stayed shut
their bodies shriveling
like dried apricots
joining the succession
of turtles Easter ducklings a white Java sparrow—
creatures brought home in boxes
thrown away in metal garbage pails
all meant to be “educational” for me
and yes they were
they taught me how to grieve
I learned that nothing
in this toxic house
would thrive
except the mealworms
months later
through the winter
I saw them on my blankets
and between the sheets
still twisting stubbornly
for worms
will always find you in your bed
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 24, Issue 3.
Margaret D. Stetz is the Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women’s Studies and Professor of Humanities at the University of Delaware. Although she has spent her life in academia, she still finds it hard to reconcile that with her working-class background, growing up in Queens, New York. In the past year her poetry has appeared in numerous journals, including Existere, Azure, Review Americana, A Plate of Pandemic, Mono, Mom Egg Review, and also in the Washington Post.
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