With bulbous eyes and smirky lips
he climbs with sticky fingertips
sheer trunks by night to snap up gnats,
then picks a slender branch tip that’s
near a porch light, inflates his throat,
and wakes us with a swampy note
that swells a hundred times his size,
like a bored grump with bulbous eyes
who stops pretending and reveals
to stunned ears how he really feels.
