[Spoken] Dimly visible through the outer walls of the dust-colored ootheca Twenty fetal co*kroaches begin to move Blattarian eyes, mouthparts, antennae, and legs They have pushed themselves In the narrow seam of the egg capsule Gulping air, and, yes, they inflate Nearly doubling their size Expanding until they spill out They were abandoned By their mother On some dark edge Of the universe In the crevice Between Floorboards And a leaky pipe With spasmodic twists and turns They must tear themselves free From thin, membranous pellicles The new millennium begins And within the first minute Of the official clock on 3rd Street, The co*kroaches emerge Like a gang of young teens Having crawled out of their bedroom windows And meet in the park And they will Molt Again And again Bloating their bodies To slip out And eat Replicas Of their former selves Until They have wings co*kroaches have been doing this Millions of years before the age of dinosaurs And little has changed They are Creatures With a brain That travels From one end Of their bodies To the other They know survival The co*kroaches do not care About the city's 3rd street clock They do not keep count of hours or days They do not know who was born first They have no use for calendars Unless there is nothing left to eat They know survival They know survival They know They know survival Unless there is nothing left to eat co*kroaches have been doing this for millions of years