I can’t help but mourn the frogs, flattened
like Wile E. Coyote after the inevitable boulder
plummets from a great height, leaving him
mashed on the pavement while the Roadrunner
speeds off - vroom, vroom, beep, beep.
I try to steer around them, but they blanket
the road in biblical numbers during the rain
and it’s like some impossible video game
weaving through masses of randomly hopping life
a certain amount of death is unavoidable.
When I walk the road I can’t stop
counting one, two, five, ten, twenty
cartoon-flat bodies littering the pavement
where I extinguished their glittering
copper and golden-green existence.
Last night, on the panes of every lit window
frogs of all sizes and colors gathered
outside, they covered doors, watering cans
even lined up single file on the coiled garden hose
like they were climbing the ladder to frog heaven.
Through the glass, I admired their rhythmic
throats and soft, creamy, underbellies
one, two, five, ten, twenty
fragile creatures seeking warmth
in the hastening darkness.