I forget I’m listening to the radio
until I’m surrounded by big blue buildings
springing up like whack-a-moles. It’s not
the kind of city that lasts long
but the colors are worth it. There’s the blue
of the Gulf of Finland and the blue of Lake
Tanganyika. Then like stunned fish
they recede into the cool brown depths.
The fish of myself just took a look
at today and bugged out. To splash
unheedingly onto shore like an early amphibian,
to play piano with an eight-fingered limb.
Can you imagine the chords Acanthostega could hit?
Monk called him the Fish, the Bird called him
the Frog. Back then they were playing
something called wet bop. Even if you’re not
meant for land or music you can still
blast out the bass line, the backbeat.
Conor Gearin is a writer whose work has appeared in The New Territory, Chariton Review, ONE ART, Frozen Sea, Stone Circle, and elsewhere. He grew up chasing pickerel frogs in St. Louis. He now listens for tree frogs among the morning bird choruses in Omaha, where he is the president of the Audubon Society of Omaha.