A centipede crawled across
The hotel bathroom floor
This being Florida
And arthropods everywhere
My mind turned toward a private cliché
The classical doctrine of plenitude
Up and down the Great Chain of Being
Precursor to the theory of evolution
Gapless uninterrupted with no links missing
Such that between the armadillo and the aardvark
Must be found the pangolin
As the angels must reside between God and man
And innumerable ranks of angels even so
As between the armadillo and the pangolin
Must reside the fairy armadillo
An annelid with legs thought I
Somewhere between earthworm and earwig
And I was struck with wonderment
How had it prevailed against the insecticide
Endemic to human habitations
And with what temerity does man
Build a hotel upon the houses
Of armadillos and centipedes
And who beside this centipede
Perilously out of place here on the third floor
Will survive the scourge of toxicity