I sat down in the grass
With my headphones on
And listened
As the wind awakened from sleep
And rushed to play in the leaves
Turning the trees into
An orchestra of chimes
I heard the early birds
Up with the dawn
Join together in harmonious song
I heard flutters of feathered wings
And the song the cricket sings
Then I realized that during this concert
Of this brand new day
On my iPad I had yet to hit play

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.

Last night, I ate
the god ****** apple.
I plucked it from its branch
in plain sight.
There it sat, smooth and round,
in my eager palms—
tantalizing with promises
of fulfillment that causes
a hungry jaw to tingle at its corners.
I grazed it, playfully, with my teeth
before giving into my ultimate desires
to let the sweet juices pop
and run down my chin.
Then, charged with a satisfaction
that pulsed electric down my spine,
I took bite after bite,
easing into something
I had taught myself not to need;
a keen knowledge of indulgent pleasure
that makes woman, woman,
and woman wanted.
I reveled there in the heat of it all,
naked, sticky, and fully absolved
of that restless, nagging guilt.

I mean, come on,
Eve just wanted to know ****.

All armies are the same
Publicity is fame
Artillery makes the same old noise
Valor is an attribute of boys
Old soldiers all have tired eyes
All soldiers hear the same old lies
Dead bodies always have drawn flies