Frogless, by Margaret Atwood

The sore trees cast their leaves

too early. Each twig pinching

shut like a jabbed clam.

Soon there will be a hot gauze of snow

searing the roots.

Booze in the spring runoff,

pure antifreeze;

the stream worms drunk and burning.

Tadpoles wrecked in the puddles.

Here comes an eel with a dead eye

grown from its cheek.

Would you cook it?

You would if.

The people eat sick fish

because there are no others.

Then they get born wrong.

This is not sport, sir.

This is not good weather.

This is not blue and green.

This is home.

Travel anywhere in a year, five years,

and you’ll end up here.

From “Morning in the Burned House” by Margaret Atwood. (Houghton Mifflin: $19.95; 127 pp.) 1995 Reprinted by permission.