The old pond—
a frog jumps in,
sound of water.
- Basho
This story starts a long time ago
with a kid who christened himself Toad Frog.
He lived in a mobile home ready to capsize
in a sea of weeds in the yard.
Me, I was bound for college that fall.
I drove too fast on dirt roads
beyond the dog track at Apache Junction,
past lemon and orange groves.
My dad had just bought Sunland Apartments,
a dozen units of cinderblock.
My job was to paint. I couldn’t say no.
Stirring the paint, sorting the brushes,
I saw a boy—middle-school maybe—
his face wide with an open-mouthed grin,
shirt stained the colors of a suicide sno-cone.
He edged a bit closer, said his name was Toad Frog.
Of course, he wanted to help me paint.
Dreading a mess, of course I said no.
He didn’t hold it against me, though,
as he tilted back his head and said,
I dreamed I was awake,
but when I woke up,
I was asleep!
That night I was back at my house in the suburbs
by the pool glowing turquoise and shimmying,
scented with roses and chlorine.
I was thinking about Toad Frog’s trailer park.
Clothes on the line, stiff with heat and dry,
gather dust from the wind. A palm tree,
dead fronds hanging defeated, waits
for a lightning strike. The fading
sunset, peach and red, silhouettes
a saguaro, arms raised in surrender.
Toad Frog squats on the steps of his trailer,
lit only by the TV’s bleak light.
A Fudgesicle drips on his untied sneakers.
He licks his hands and as much of his face
as his tongue can reach. The screen door bangs open,
he darts inside, missing the meteor shower.
Distressed, I jump into the water, sink and wonder
Who is asleep?
rise gasping, sink again thinking,
Who is awake?
Talking River Review, Fall 2023