FROG DROPPED BY A HAWK

On R.V. roof with sun and rain
worked into the dulling aluminium,
a black frog lay in the groove

motionless as a rubber toy; deceased
and stiff as wood, one leg
broken and half missing. Remaining

tiny toes tear-jerking somehow.
Into my heart I took him.
His little sunken eyes

no longer moist and darting
absorbed instead of reflecting light;
a piece of paper I burnt once

looked a lot like that.
Pollen dulled his back to ochre
the way mold encrusts a stale cheese.

Yet his belly retained it's luminosity
away from U.V. rays;
the life once dwelling there

in each silvery body scale: like
candle flame observed through a moonstone.
And I saw thread-like rents there

in the swollen dark bruise
where beak or talon had sliced
painfully into tender flesh.

So sad. It hurt to look.
Slaughtered for what? Not even
sustenance for the marauding hawk.