Exeunt

I'm trying to leave. Below the pond a spill of tadpoles is struggling in no more than a teaspoon of rain. Pinching up blobs of black jelly when no sound betrays pain or pulping is grim; I find a leaf, scoop them. They cling in a scrawl of commas and speech marks, pause their frantic wriggling. Did you answer that last question? Did you listen? Slack, wet blisters flicked back into the pond. I watch them sink from view, wish them godspeed in the realm of the slinty-eyed newt, his thrust and glide, his thin-lipped smile. What ever happened to us?