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Glyn Wright

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Knowledge

For years dark remnants had mouldered there,
Musty rural corner where kids slipped through the fence.
Blackbirds laid claim to it, crows and rats,
Water gathered, toadstools stood their ground.

I found a frog in grass there, a live born purse,
A pulsing little muscle, eyes like marbles,
Mini hands… Then in a blink it was airborne,
Dropping to ground on collapsible stilts.

But when I revealed my discovery they said
I must not no-no touch that slimy beast
Or a warty horror would spread over me:
Lumps and blobs from hand to arm to chest…

When I spotted it again I couldn’t help
But hand its cool forbidden leather,
Palm its soft, its damp, its brown-green living strip
Before it sprang from the finger-trap

But no vile or obscene thing took a grip,
Here were no spots or stains or maggots of skin,
The impure looked no different from the chaste,
Carried no rank smell of rotten eggs or sin.

I gazed on grime and ink tattoos.
My fingers gripped pencils, spidered like before,
Held bread and bags, and still and still no foulness
Came to drag me into the warty fire.

 

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