the FROGMAN

I live under a spell.
catching flies
with a charmed tongue
at the bottom of a water well.
Living below a water lily is heavenly,
but I choose this pond’s earthy surface
to grow weary in my green leper’s skin,
dreaming of a gentler flesh.

I succumb to what is hidden,
inventing darkness in the blink of an eye.
My humped appearance
remains unbroken, bewitched
with a cold blooded passion for love.
I bask alone,
while sunlight shuffles
patterns of light,
hushing the gossip of mosquitoes.

Where flowers shed their fragrance,
I purse a smile
from eye to eye
and rise early in the morning
without moving the shape of water.
but I am hard,
examine my edges,
the beast kicking within me,
that would turn these veins
of darkness
with a woman’s kiss

into the flesh of a man.