soaked doc martins, summer humidity
in tennessee temp, blazing
bees decimate
lurking silent tree line, one floating
chuck 70, bodies still
with grass to back, gas station lighter
shoved in pocket, evidence in carmine
fading into eyes, ultraviolet emitter understands
enough to lay down, muttered voices
guide firefly from ground to
air to hand to
// // //
never ask the moon to explain
the things that happen under her glow,
under her violent silence
instead, watch shoes coming up on the creek bed,
tadpoles shushing the flowing water,
crawdads moving in grace, toads feeling the light
on oily skin, fireflies lighting up what she cannot
Jacob Hatfield is a poet writing out of Middle Tennessee. Everything is about frogs for him and he loves finding them on the side of his house and ribbit-ing along with them. (Insta: @jacobandthefrogs).