Toad Spring 2018

The soil suddenly breathed as I forked a pale Hellebore into sodden earth.

 Almost riven through a spoon-backed, squat toad.

Warty: blotched green-black.

His slumbering smile reminds me of you.

Witch’s familiar boiled for bile, blood and faeces.

Palm-sized seducer of princesses’ who hop-crawls into silken sheets,

slicked with a swelter of venomous saliva.

Croak your poison into irresistible ears.

Bulbous, observant yellow-eyes, open

revealing copper-slanted-irises that blink and re-seal.

Spiny, nuptial thumb pads to better grapple floundering females,

which release pearlescent gelatinous strings of metamorphosing eggs.

I re-cover its slippery grin and cast a spell.

May a biblical plague of toads swarm your faithless King-size feather bed.