Martyn Lowery
Transmutation
I brought you back
A jar of spawn, precarious
As loose eggs in my pocket.
Here, I said, like I promised,
Look after them.
We slopped the lot
Into your old bath
Where they sloshed
Like black, unblinking eyes
In jellied snot.
Then for weeks, nothing.
Like full stops in a frozen
Language, the tadpoles
Itched in their spawn
Oblivious to cats
And your god’s sudden finger.
Until, one morning, the bath
Full of frantic punctuation
I called you, crying
Look, look, they’ve hatched.
You wore a Christmas face
Swooped a handful
Of the sleek oiled bullets,
Felt their tickle, their wriggling
Thrust, their life,
Lost interest. I came home
One night to find
The water turned to stink
And embedded in the solid murk
Dying tadpoles
And one tiny, albino frog
That nearly made it.
You slept as I poured
Away the stagnant mess,
Sluiced and disinfected
And hid the dead from you,
Saw over the final tail-wagging
Frenzy of your first pets.
In the morning you asked
For your frogs. I lied
About a great escape.
Satisfied, you nodded your head
And went back out to play.
Page(s) 20-21
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