utterFing

A plague of frogs,
the T slick with roadkill,
hills and hollows to be walked.
In the ditches,
 
bits and bias of a lost world,
a crimped map
of roiling tadpoles, algae,
garbage, an eyeless robin,
 
a fragment of blue/yellow
candy wrapper.
 
And everywhere, the frogs—
springing/sprung, living/dying,
emerald to ochre—
chirk deep elegies.
 
In the air, scent of birth/death
as I, unparented,
trying to parse the frog psalms,
trudge from Possum Walk
 
toward Goose Creek,
cradling the urn with the ashes.

*poetrymagazine.com  April 2012

Fox Dreams 

will make you ache
to slink and steal,
will have you lurk in
meadows, a red singe
at sunrise.
Fox dreams will cause
your teeth and the nights
to grow long,
will offer you bones
promising fresh,
sweet marrow.
But—beware the fox
dream, or you will keen
in the shadows,
desperate to be again
silent, feral and free.

© Copyright, 2012, Susan Terris.
All rights reserved.