POISONED FROG

 

Hibiscus leaves turn

to lace as beetles eat

and eat, wound purple

malva leaves.  Every night

 

we put soapy water

in  my grandmother’s

mixing bowl, drop

bugs in, leave the bowl

by the back step,

hundreds blackening

the water.  Tonight,

 

among dead insects,

we see a brown frog,

who thought the bowl

a small lake,

had leapt in, drank, died—

 

what have we done?

 

The world leaps less

this morning.

Kenneth Pobo’s most recent book, “Introductions,” came out from Pearl’ s Book’ Em Press in 2003. Right now he’ s reading M. Robinson’ s novel Housekeeping and a new biography of Ava Gardner. He's getting over a bad case of poison ivy he got from working endlessly in the garden. Listen to his “Obscure Oldies” radio show on www.WDNR.com each Saturday from 6-8pm EDT.

Dance to Death, Issue I

©2008 Sorrowland Press and all respective artists within.