“not too
Many words, please, in the muddy shallows the
Frogs are singing.”
—April, Mary Oliver

Gleeful morning deejays grackling in full
throat for the Monday commute, special post-

Independence Day edition, beseech
their caffeinated listeners to dish

the dirt from a sun-dripped July weekend.
Callers are cajoled between songs cranked up

to eleven, Boom Boom Pow and Katy
Perry, to broadcast at full warp speed—

three words only—their cascading scarlet
shimmers, hot summer kisses, blankets sand

baked, and mad midnight fandangos. The sound
bites are dutifully breviloquent:

“Beach, beer, babes,” drawls one, to the hosts’ delight,
while a sultry “hotdogs and buns” prompts an

on-air coffee-and-cream spit-take. “My friends
barbecued” beams another, with no hint

of irony. In sing-song tones, smooth hip
snapshooters keep firing away, until

up against the hour, time allows for one
last splurge. “Let’s end with a bang,” the sunrise

crew crescendos. Except this next voice jars,
all bronchial and strained, echoes of old

Anne Ramsey in Throw Momma from the Train.
Croaking it lurches onto the airwaves,

slow raspy jog, because there is real pride
in the force of this: “I. Got. Pollywogs.”

The five seconds of silence that follow
ripple through the morning commute, derailed

dead-air oblivion, midsummer raves
breached by pond-squatting amphibians.