Squeamish - July 31 2026

 

Squeamish

July 31 2026

Frogs make me squeamish.

Perhaps the way their thin skin

slick with pond scum

and disfigured with warts

drapes so loosely over toothpick bones

that could snap like seasoned kindling.

Or those protruding eyes,

blinking sleepily

through a see-through membrane

with a dim-witted gaze.

How do they survive

hopping through the underbrush 

underfoot

so infernally slow?

How could a prey animal

resist making speed,

feel entitled to its place

basking lazily

in the noonday sun?

But I think it was science class

where we dissected them

that left its mark.

The long slim legs

extended slackly

I was so reluctant to handle,

twitching spastically 

with an electric charge.

Then slicing through elastic skin

of a soft pale underside,

and the tightly packed viscera

bursting out

as if it never really fit.

A life, sacrificed

for the sake of ungrateful kids

more interested in hijinks

than education.

But we were immature, irreverent, and impatient

as well as secretly repulsed,

smirking

as the class clown made faces

at the glistening amphibian

spreadeagled in death.

Or summer camp,

when the morbid kids

would gleefully torture them

while the rest reluctantly watched,

too timorous to object;

budding psychopaths, I suspect

who would next move on

to kicking dogs and beating spouses.

Today, it was a tiny frog

hopping haltingly through the grass

as hard as it could

toward a swampy patch of shore.

So easy to have stepped on, if I hadn’t looked;

the slight wet squish

underfoot,

the cellophane crackle 

of delicate bones

transmitted feebly through my sole

I would hardly have felt.

Slow frogs everywhere

like hidden landmines,

tumescent bags of blood and guts

camouflaged by underbrush

I try not to flatten

I am a circumspect Godzilla,

mincing through Tokyo

as the terrified flee,

stepping carefully

hoping no one notices me.

Believe it or not, I think I’m much better with snakes and spiders than I am with frogs. 

Actually, that tiny guy was more likely a toad. But never mind. And the dissection was actually in university; but by then we were serious, and that wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun to write about!

I really have always wondered how frogs survive, because they seem so unfit at evading predation. How many times have I almost stepped on one?!

People who abuse animals raise a red flag for future criminality. You don’t have to be a full-blown psychopath to lack empathy or dehumanize others. 

(Btw, the correct term for that clear protective cover for their eyes is “nictitating” membrane. And not exclusive to frogs.)