Popping Frogs in the ’50s

Poem by Linda Quinlan

Beside the Soldiers’ Home
the knotted rope swing pulled
between our legs
as our bodies swung
and our toes touched the leaves below.
This was before
the boys opened us
like the names they carved on bark.
They gathered frogs from the pond
and threw them under cars
just to hear them pop.
Us girls
held each other’s hands
and tightened our roller-skates with keys.
On the stoop
our fathers played poker
and laughed at the frog crackers
as the heat exploded into twilight.
The porch light and shirts went on.
I saved as many frogs as I could,
but most weren’t quick enough
to hide in the summer grass.
They slipped in oil as thick as mud.
I sat down by the pond
making mud pies,
listening to my mother yell about polio
as if that were the only danger.

LINDA QUINLAN is a working class, LGBT+ poet living in Vermont. She has been published in several journals, some of which include: The New Orleans Review, Pudding, Sinister Wisdom, and the North Carolina Literary Review.