Everyday and every night

The centipedes crawl out the drains

Behind the toilet or the sink

Or outside

Whenever it rains

And come out upon the concrete

With their many little feet

And their long segmented bodies

They are mean looking and fast

And too frightening to suddenly contest

The top of the local social hierarchy

And they remind me whenever I see them

Of our true and humble condition

A few I capture for the students

To take to the local medicine maker

And most I simple squash

With my shoe or a board

And in the year of our occupation

I counted forty-nine centipedes

That I dispatched

And fortunate I felt

That none of us were bitten

Except by spiders and mosquitoes

The Great Wall Revisited

Trails in the Snow

1991-1993