[Poetry] Frog Summer

Read the third-place entry for our week of June 1 contest, Moments of Being

Frog Summer
by

Helen Mallett

Remember when we pressed our new chests into grass
skirts skimming thighs, cardis balled in drawstring bags
tops cropped and shirts tied, stains gathering
while we blew bubbles the colour of air?
Hours would pass, talking circles round each other.
We glowed like magnolia before rain.

When shadows stretched we’d slowly lift ourselves
limbs long and creased with field impressions.
Biology homework: research the lifecycle
of a common frog. Rana temporaria.
We loaded up Encarta
because Google wasn’t a verb then,
it wasn’t even a word, just a sound
like something a baby would say
fistful of puree, mouth full of spoon.

The CD said rana feed mainly on insects
but swallow anything they can fit in their mouths.
In Japanese, rana can mean ‘princess’
or ‘serenity’. In Arabic it means ‘graceful’.
At night we dreamed of lakes, of diving
into wrecks with webbed feet, strong and agile.
We liked the way it felt, to move with ease.

You were there with me then, in the deep 
and that day when I threw up after school.
You held my hair back, said you understood
said it was the way they pinned the body
on its back, splayed the legs, stuck each pin
slowly in, opening the chest with a quick slit
grim fingers digging underneath the skin.

A Note From Our Guest Judge, Hannah Stuart-Leach

This radiant take on adolescence beautifully imbues simple moments with poetry. The very visceral ending felt uncomfortable to read but is ultimately a tribute to friendship and shared memory. A fitting nod to the complexity in female relationships Woolf so often explored in her writing. (Plus I very much enjoyed reminiscing about the pre-Google wonders of Encarta).

About

Helen Mallett

Helen Mallett is a poet & charity administrator from south London. She is currently working towards a final submission for an MA in Writing Poetry and has a very occasional Substack 'Light in Empty Rooms'. You can connect on instagram: @helenmallett_

This piece was written in response to the prompt Moments of Being.