“The Frog in the Swimming Pool” by Debora Greger (from the collection Off Season at the Edge of the World)

A wet green velvet scums the swimming pool,
furring the cracks. The deep end swims
in a hatful of rain, not enough to float

the bedspring barge, the tug of shopping cart.
Green-wet himself, the bullfrog holds his court,
sounding the summons to a life so low

he’s yet to lure a mate. Under the lip
of concrete slab he reigns, a rumble of rock,
a flickering of sticky tongue that’s licked

at any morsel winging into view.
How would he love her? Let me count the waves
that scrape the underside of night and then

let go, the depth of love unplumbed, the breadth,
the height of the pool all he needs to know.
How do I love him? Let me add the weight

of one hush to another, the mockingbird
at midnight echoing itself, not him,
one silence torn in two, sewn shut again.

Down to his level in time wings everything.
He calls the night down on his unlovely  head,
on the slimy skin that breathes the slimy air—

the skin that’s shed and still he is the same,
the first voice in the world, the last each night.
His call has failed to fill the empty house.