One Poem by Erin Koehler

Dirge [for Frogs] 

the dinner toast clang goes back to the sand
from where the glass came. But there’s no glass,
only plastic—discarded buoy
in pond mud. You find them; you toe

the water stomach in hand. Finding them:
                             losing breath; never having a mouth to breathe.
                                           Shut your mouth, you’re catching flies —:tongue
                                           wrapped around a stranger’s body : : or
                             forgetting you have a tongue in the first place. The bottle
mouth gapes impossibly
              small to fit them through—yet they are there, flattened
              together, pushing the plastic sides: a dozen
                                                        (or a hundred, or a thousand, etc.)
                             amphibious bodies. You cannot scrape

mud or pond out of the bottle. Blood
fogs eyes and eyes and eyes pressed to the side

of discarded synthetic : : transparent mausoleum.
              Red glass is the most expensive color, because each piece
              has bits of gold.