by Candice Kelsey
a golden shovel of Louise Bogan’s “The Dream”
Oh Lover, in the memory the toxic cane toad began
To invade Australia, and secrete his bufotoxins in blows,
Confusion kept for ninety years inflating his belly like a mane,
And shame equally old, or nearly, spreading a chytrid fungus through his nose.
Adolescent ambushed, I fell and froze on the ground
When my dog’s warm muzzle appeared, haunches established her reign.
Another bitch, as I lay in the daze of women’s shared wound
Growled at my father, gnawed each hand like old leather and chain.
Give me, Lover said, more specifc emotions, her steadiness a charm.
Share with me, she said, some small detail you alone claim.
Hell no, I whispered, he lays 30,000 eggs twice a year; he is out for harm,
And whether I tell it or not, it is all the same.
But, like a toad-culling robot, when I admitted his hand like a glove
Slapped my sweating, my cold right cheek;
The toxic cane toad, that no conservationist can tolerate,
Left Northern Queensland, and native species now thrive with love.
Candice M. Kelsey [she/her] is a writer and educator living in Los Angeles and Georgia. Often anchored in the seemingly quotidian, her work explores the intersections of place, body, and belonging; she has been featured in SWWIM, The Laurel Review, Poet Lore, Passengers Journal, and About Place among others. Candice mentors an incarcerated writer through PEN America and reads for The Los Angeles Review. Her comfort-character is Jessica Fletcher. Please find her @Feed_Me_Poetry and https://www.candicemkelseypoet.com/.
Emerge Literary Journal 