Telson

J. Yuen

ekphrasis of “The Scorpion and the Frog”

I must have gone down to the river

a thousand times before I dared to ask.

I went down

and waited,

and crawled home,

went down,

and went away,

and still while going away

I carried its weight.

I could not help it.

I stuck my eyes in the mud,

hid behind cattails,

restructured my face a hundred times

in the glass of the water.

It clung soldier to shore,[HS1] 

my legs to your back.

I could not

have put down my body.

I could not

help but to drown.

I could not,

could not,

could not.

(A frightened animal yearns always to return;

they say this about burnt children and fire,

the poison-weaned and harm.

They say that they made it up very gently,

as she had absolutely nowhere else to go.)

Unfamiliar with this term, is this something anyone else understands, or a typo? [HS1]