One day, downhill from the farmer’s field,
I, a frog, married a drain,
married its cool and its damp,
web-wed its steely gills,
its shaggy walls and mind of flies:
to which the drain gave consent
silently adding its nuptials.
So overgrown with green
and happy clamminess,
on the eve of our first year
a fifth foot bulbed from my skin
with something of the pressure and shape
of a cork being eased
from a bottle of champagne.
All night, my croak in the air
was the closest I could get to your
– remind me, what do you call them –
fireworks or flares?