Three Poems

A Guide to the Frogs of Fiji

We were five days into
the month of fragile things

or so the ukulele kept reminding
us. A casual strum.

The village rooster out pecking
on the far reef.

What we didn't know we read
in a guide to the frogs

of Fiji: how, in late winter,
a soft, low-pitched trilling

crosses the moonlit golfcourse;
that males of a certain age

lack spines. What to look or
listen for:

'a soft coo-coo-coo like the sound
of a two-stroke

generator', 'a rising moan
repeated, softly',
...