Little brown toad, little knotted fist
in the shade of the bean row, forgive me
for disrupting whatever toads do
on hot August afternoons
when I lifted the leaves, scritched
my big stainless bowl along the ground.
The sound when you leapt, thumped
the half-empty bowl, a ringing music.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 24, Issue 1.
Daye Phillippo taught English at Purdue University and her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Valparaiso Poetry Review, The Midwest Quarterly, Literary Mama, Shenandoah, Presence, Cider Press Review, Great Lakes Review, Natural Bridge, The Windhover, and others. She lives and writes in a creaky, old farmhouse on twenty rural acres in Indiana. Her poem “Missing Parts” was awarded second place in the New York Encounter Poetry Contest in 2021. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her debut collection of poems, Thunderhead, was published by Slant Books in 2020.
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