Do not disturb the mountain toad.
It clucks like a chicken, mates in a pond,
Smaller males clutching fast to the backs
Of larger females and riding around on them.
And when the tadpoles lose their tails
They migrate from the shore into the trees.
It is an endangered species with no sense
Of the risk involved in crossing a highway
From the pond to get to those lovely trees.
Daughter sometimes would assist a toad
In safely crossing a road. More often
She would dare to disturb them, happily
Picking up a mating pair from pond's edge
And carrying them about like a gob of mud,
The male clutching and clucking atop
The silent, stolid female waiting to release
Her gut-busting burden of black eggs.
Daughter captured adults, skeins of eggs,
And squirming tadpoles by the bucket. Also,
Their enemies, the snakes that timed
And situated their own breeding to maximize
A chance to batten their young on frogs,
She captured those too, catch-and-release,
The frantic linearity whipping in her net
As if it were caught on eagle's talons.
This afternoon she waded in after "a huge,
White toad, the biggest one ever," only
To haul up a badly bloated corpse. Body
Revulsed as the swollen memento mori
Swung near. What would it be like to be
An animal for whom proximity to rotting flesh
Was intensely appetizing? Self snorted,
Having already commanded daughter
To dump the odiferous revenant back
In the drink. After all, my friend, what is it
You do when you peruse texts composed
By the long dead but to salivate over
Your own approach to the rotting remnants
Of bloated thoughts bursting with culture?
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