Frog

Pocket pet of witches,  reincarnated  child souls, most toxic augers of weather
&  superstitions—your  midnight  croaking  means  rain’s  on the  way while  a
draught  of  pollywogs’s  a  cure-all  for  cancer,  consumption &  or weakness.
You taste somewhere  between  mermaid & chicken,  you don’t dole warts nor
grant wishes.  In the original fairy tale it’s the maiden pummeling you against
the wall turning you back into a prince & not her sovereign kisses. Mistake, as
Homer did,  Bufo  for you &  open the  doors  of astral vision.  God Almighty’s
been  sweeping  you  into cloud,  hailing you  down  upon roofs &  roads since
Heraclides.  Because yours is the first species to die out  when your  habitat is
contaminated  you  are  earth  gauger,  poison  in  the  water’s  measure.  How
seldom  nowadays  a floating fleet  of ships is,  too few are  tempests of  blood,
crosses,   snakes   &   fishes;    our  end   times   reveal   themselves  as  nuclear
cataclysm,  flood  &  drought,  pandemic.  Once a week you pull off your  dead
skin &  eat it.  I get it.  Like  some megaton  explosion I too’ve  wanted to shed
self,  all  leg  &  bleating  throat  &  reslicken  primogenial.  What   did  I  know
peeling  you   apart  teasing  out   with  scalpel   your   three-chambered  heart
but denials  sweet &  tribulations vile?  That,  & if you had wings you wouldn’t
bump    your   salientian    ass   every   time   you    hopped   down    the   street

Copyright © 2023 by Flower Conroy. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 8, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets. 

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“Like many, I was horrified and fascinated by dissecting a frog in middle school and wanted this bestiary poem to explore the intersectionality of myth, fairy tale, superstition, pop culture, religion and fact as interwoven in the personal. My backyard abuts a bayou, and during some thick nights under the stars the mass orchestration of frogs’ waxing-and-waning croaking becomes so overwhelming that I realize how small I am in this world. The ending is from an expression my father (when alive) would sometimes utter.”
―Flower Conroy