Out from your box

One piled snuggling

Next to the other

You look out at me

Big brown-black eyes

Inform me that

You are still alive

But there is no noise

Of croaking coming

From you, nor do you

Try and hop out

And I don’t understand

Why you have given up

The fight for freedom

The box says on it

Intermediate sized frogs

But there is no price

On your head while

 you sit there

Staring out at me, one

Looking just as the other

Why are you not struggling

To get out the sides

It is not that high

An image of lobsters

Walking on the waters

Floors, amongst the rubble,

Comes to me

And I remember the

High shrill sound

Dropping them

In boiling water

They say if you put frogs

In a pot of water and slowly

Raise the temperature

They will be lulled to sleep

And die, but turn the flame

Quickly and they will

Fight to survive

I see you all sitting there

And I am in awe

What part of you

Has been shut down

That you don’t escape

And I am reminded

Of people herded off

In cattle cars

Their emaciated and thin

Bones showing their

Entire skeleton, still

They struggle to breath

Above the stenches

And with all human rights

Violated and betrayed,

They struggle to survive

Until the smoke rises

From the chimneys

Those frogs have haunted me since I saw them there.  Few people in the store speak English and I cannot ask them where the frogs come from or why they don’t try to escape or how they eat them, and if they kill them first.  Even if there was, and there sometimes is, someone who spoke good enough English to ask, I cannot bring myself to ask the questions.

I think about becoming a vegetarian, but it doesn’t even last till I get out of the store, besides now we are dealing with Monsanto produce on top of everything.  I think about people all over the world who were herded together or lumped together in a box.  The eyes of the frogs staring out at me remind me of the advertisements of starving children from Biafra and the like.  It has been weeks now, and I could just write that poem now.  It has been weeks now, and their eyes still stare out at me.  I am trying to hear what they are saying.