Frog

The mind flops around in the brain,
Smacking back and forth in the skull,
From a camelid in Utah
Browsing in snowy junipers
To nostalgia for a cafe
Near a busy intersection
Where a conversation took place
About mining towns and tree poems

The last time today was today.
It flips, it sprawls, it smears the walls
Of its mossy cavern with streaks
Of thoughts about peculiar things
That mean nothing at all outside
Its small circus of memories,
Kindergarten Batman, balloons
In ICU, fourth-grade bow ties,

Hockey flag-waving on TV,
Bicentennial wallpaper,
Insurance office cubicles,
Frozen milk outside the window,
An Irish voice over the phone
One afternoon in Atlanta,
Fog on a Birmingham hillside,
All those hurdles, such a small pond.