Quote: William Steig Poem: Tom Delmore

William Steig said, "If I'd had it my way, I'd have been a professional athlete, a sailor, a beachcomber, or some other form of hobo, a painter, a gardener, a novelist, a banjo-player, a traveler, anything but a rich man."

The poem below is from my forthcoming boook A Poultice for Belief


The Second Plague:
Frogs Swarm
Out of the River
When the frogs came up
From the river,
Their leaps took wing,
Sending them everywhere.
Every human footfall concealed
A crunch, a squish.
Frogs hung upon bodies
like ornaments
With no boundaries.
Magicians reproduced
Frogs, and said: ha!
Pharaoh spoke: I will release
Your people to worship.
Stop this frogging!
It stopped. All smelled the rot
of the Pharaoh’s renege.