Anthony Frame is an exterminator who lives in Toledo, Ohio with his wife. His first book of poems, A Generation of Insomniacs, is forthcoming from Main Street Rag Press. His chapbook, Paper Guillotines, was published by Imaginary Friend Press and recent poems have been published in or are forthcoming from Harpur Palate, Third Coast, The North American Review, Redactions, The Dirty Napkin, Gulf Stream and diode among others. He is also the co-founder and co-editor of Glass: A Journal of Poetry. Learn more at http://www.anthony-frame.com/.

 

Everything I Know I Learned from Kermit the Frog

It can’t be easy, froggy baby,
carrying the world on your

anthropomorphic shoulders. I’d hate
being a typecast hero, happiness

the order of everyday, never allowed
to display your neuroses. Your chemophobia

or ornithophobia. It’s hard not being
a scream, everything boiling beneath

your chest, while you keep singing about
rainbows and the color of leaves

until you forget to feel the heat inside
your heart, all those banned thoughts

about who’s in control. Sit with me,
Kermit, let’s share a smoke and figure out

why it’s so troubling to be so sentient.
Like, how I’m not sure a frog has a soul

so what do I do with a puppet that
feels so real? Look, the leaves are changing,

beauty through death. Do you ever
think about it? Just a snip of the strings

so you can go limp. I doubt thoughts
of death ever cross your fingernail-

mind. Kermie, why do I want to confess
my ommetaphobia and zeusophobia to you?

It must be tough being responsible
for everyone’s laughter while having

to hold their sorrow in your tiny,
felt fingers. Sometimes, without

the aid of a puppeteer’s hand, I find
it’s not easy remembering to breathe.