The Gutted Allegory

A brown blood frog, dried
Where it smeared the floor,
A gob of dark oil

Paint on stone, triggered
The wish it were gone
Every time passed by.

Had it been outside,
It might have seemed part
Of natural rot

And texture, like leaves
In clumps after floods,
Roadkill’s last stages

As bones in a ditch,
Decay’s rich details—
But a smear of blood

Deep inside the house
Never loses that
Horror of trauma.