(Pseudacris crucifer)
Untruths cried one whole April night,
plea of frog, of Chaucer, of all not right
in newly quarantined space, street still,
inebriate garden, in early spring frill.
Out an open window, poppies, embers
of noon yet flare in darkness: dissemblers.
Allow frog to fake amphibian, avian song.
For pity’s sake it sings, moves; that’s wrong?
Tree frog, is your sin stentorian deception?
Isn’t the crime, as usual, our inattention?
So small, always where you don’t belong,
high hemlock hunched, not mud? Not pond?
Ears brush-splash a bull of many pounds.
Accept this gift to see what’s never found.
John O’dell’s poetry appears in The Potomac Review, The Baltimore Review, The Birmingham Poetry review, and others. Has work in anthologies including Free state: a Harvest of Maryland Poets, and Maryland in Poetry. Has published three poetry collections: Painting At Night; At Beauty’s Pawnshop; and Sons and Tattoos.
