tonight the bullfrogs carry on in the pond—
don’t they understand about wildfires?
everyone notices the blood-red moon
above their jocular croaking
I can’t help myself—
I notice flames in everything now
hardly an orchid crosses my path
without outlining the veins of violence
searing red into the pale pink delicacy
silence in the hollows a too-short ending
rivers spring downhill from graves
where everything but water
forced souls hard into earth
frogs, too, can worry me
the less of them equaling
a disaster greater than us all
wrapped around bloated calls
and this beautiful burning moon
lives in the foothills of the Green Mountains, though she is not the first, nor the last, to call this land home. She is the fiction co-editor for Mud Season Review based in Burlington, Vermont. Ann’s poetry and prose have appeared in About Place Journal, Plainsongs, Samjoko Magazine, The South Shore Review, and Zig Zag Lit Mag, among others. Her microfiction “Illusions” was a semi-finalist in the Magician Ekphrastic Writing Challenge at MacQueen’s Quinterly.
Author’s website: www.annfishervt.com
