Tadpole Martini
There’s a lychee nut swimming
in my pink sushi bar martini
and something in its smooth lethargy
reminds me
of the silky plumpness of a bullfrog tadpole
wriggling through my fingers and churning
the leafy mud beneath the water
and I stir
my drink with a tiny straw
set my glass on a dainty napkin
titter flatly at something you’ve said
and pretend
not to wish I was barefoot on the bank of a stagnant creek
under an indigo summer-night sky
catching things by moonlight
just to let them go
Feature Date
- February 18, 2018
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Copyright © 2017 by Katie Palazzola
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission
Fall 2017
St. Louis, Missouri
University of Missouri–St. Louis
Editor: Mary Troy
Managing Editor: Dusty Freund
Natural Bridge, a journal of contemporary literature, began publishing fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and works in translation by award-winning writers just prior to the new millennium, and its national and international subscriptions, and thus its reach, have grown yearly…. New, emerging, and mid-career writers whose work has been published in Natural Bridge have been anthologized and have gone on to win the Flannery O’Connor, the Drue Heinz, the John Ciardi prizes, and more.
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