"Fuck you," she snarls, in the lemon yellow
of her darling back. "Fuck you, lady. By the time
I get through with you you gonna wish you had
never been born. Ask that snake over there. He knows."
She sits still as my heavy fingers fumble
on the shutter, a flat silver button
as big as her head.
A slow blink.
"Fuck you, Mami. I told you, don't
touch me, but do you listen?" She addresses
the canopy at large, the sick-smelling pitcher plant,
the butterfly the size of a textbook
that is watching me with interest.
I do not speak Spanish. I do not
speak frog and somehow she knows this,
yet she does not stir as, like the gilded rings
of the Pope, I kiss her
again and again.
photograph from Golden Poison Frog Wikipedia entry
...please excuse my language. There's no polite translation for that protective coloration.
