The green brown August lawns jump and squirm
A slimy silk quilts streets and sidewalks
with tens of thousands of frogs
after Odin sucked them up and spit them out
during one of his tantrums
Not many of the Montana farm town people
believe in a Norse storm god
But they bow down to the Bible
that reports rain of manna and quail
Some know Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz
fell from meteorological fact
And enough old timers remember the frog rain
that hammered their windshields in the thirties
The same quarter-sized species living
in the swamp on the southeast edge of town
Back then the place was just as divided
between mystics who believed the frogs were sent
to obliterate grasshoppers from wheat fields
And those who believed in opportunity
Cooks who changed the supper menu
from steak to gumbo
Fishermen with walleye bait on their hooked fingers
And teenagers who collected the creatures
to sell in the nearest city pet store
If they hadn't slicked the roads
with entrails for entertainment
Today's flood of frogs attracts more national news
than the birthright to Pearl Jam's bass player
More than the world's largest tractor
Even more than the homegrown U.S. senator
The town has already planned an official
frog-themed Christmas
One resident told reporters
that the biggest blessing is Odin
So drunk on all the attention that maybe
he'll storm away this seven-year drought
The resident asked to remain anonymous
* Previously published in Rock River times
If a Factory Is Too Literal, What about a Cemetery?
I walk by the creek in nothing
but heart-shaped sunglasses and my mythology.
I cry for the sailor with hooks for his hands
touch mystery, whisper
look how he can't hug his girl.
The day is forever. I can't stop sleeping
keep thinking back
to the pines in my grandparents' yard
sun-wind, low humidity, the man w/ the cloak
except he's not a vampire.
I want to stay on the homefront forever
where my face breaks out
I don't open the toys.
The man with the hook-hands can't act
so they zoom in on his sad lips.
Sometimes I think I've given up music.
I walk into the depths I think bouncing airmen
at various drugstores my diaphragm
I think a collarless black suit/white puffy blouse
black suede pump brain rot
a black patent leather handbag two handles.
I get relieved when they don't mention sex
the luxury of not counting my steps.
How could I wash myself then/tender breasts
soda jerk-off at the Hollywood Hotel torture chamber?
It was almost like my blood was pink
the way it spread over my nylons and slip
the way they found me chopped up
like experimental cinema.
