Marriage Counseling with Glass Frog
On National Geographic, I watch the glass frog’s lungs blink
inside a body no larger than an eyelid. With each breath,
the clear lobes quiver like tiny leaves in a storm. Skin—
thin and translucent. What’s beneath—illuminated
as if through x-ray. In the waiting room, we sit. Shift
in our seats, as the secondhand ticks. Ticks. Your face, lit up
by a cell phone as you scroll. Above our heads, the TV glows green
as the glass frog blends in, becomes forest canopy. In the trees,
it disappears, but underneath, the frog’s belly—a window.
I can see it all—intestines pushed up against liver and stomach,
a single scarlet vein inked toward the pulsing heart.
From the back, the therapist calls our names,
and you shove your phone in your pocket as we stand.
Somewhere along the way, we forgot what it’s like
to see each other this way—slick with rainwater,
blood bright and scarlet in the dark, soft insides exposed,
nothing hidden, even if we both know how to vanish from sight.
Chelsea Krieg was born and raised in southeastern Virginia. Her work is featured in Writing the Land: Virginia, Gulf Coast, New South, The Southern Poetry Anthology Vol. IX: Virginia, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, The Greensboro Review, Poet Lore, and elsewhere. She lives in Durham, North Carolina and teaches at North Carolina State University, where she is also assistant director of the MFA program. Find more information about her work at www.chelseakrieg.com.
Header photo of glass frog by Milan Zygmunt, courtesy Shutterstock.
