a shock of legs sprouted
tail swallowed into
bones growing from nothing,
dark nipples of
toes creeping out,
one at a time.
And the sudden need for mud.
Puffed throats and night
signals young hunters
and frogs are bathed in the salt
of child hands,
moist skin dried in too much sun,
starved beside a heap of dead flies.
At funerals
their eyes are gold
summer gazing at land,
cold toes turned into twigs.
Stiff frogs are dropped into earth
damp and waiting.