Its carapace scratches the back of the bookcase
in my bedroom. I lie in the closed dark
listening for its ascent up the wall—
an old sound, significant of stealth—
small lives armed with segmented shells
surviving time to arrive unharmed in the vault
of now: broken cigarette smoke, Cutty Sark
melting in a glass, grown-ups’ voices erasing
themselves in a distant room. Its jointed
shape will emerge, antennae first,
gelid red scarab in the gloom above my bed;
laughing mouth of a bug, yawn of dread
in its soft jaws, party to night’s worst
dreams and the evolution of disappointment.