Bewilderment poetics

apologies to Emilia Philips

There’s a frog pancake on the side of the road
on my way to work. It’s old
and dried out like fruit leather: I didn’t even
realize what it was, really, until
just yesterday, though I’ve been walking past it
every day for … probably weeks.
I’m not sure.
Now, I want to write: today, I found
a bird picking at its carcass, but I didn’t so
I won’t. The mockingbird was twittering
its way along a tree, heading up
to the top, to look around, I guess. I don’t
know. I wasn’t really paying attention, instead
I was looking at the clouds through
the powerlines, like I usually do while walking
to work or from work, that is unless
I’m looking at the parking lot sign on the corner.
It’s hand painted and I want to take
a picture of it, but I haven’t yet. I’m
not sure why, but I think it has something to do
with never having my camera when the
lighting is just right, in the late afternoon.
I go home and I could get it and come back
but I don’t. Now, I feel like I should wrap
this back around to something in the beginning,
about the frog or about the pancakes
you make every Saturday for breakfast, blueberries
constellating their sweetness, but I’m sure
you thought of that already at the beginning,
maybe even weeks ago, how could I know? All
I know is I wait til you wake up to get
out of bed, listen for the birds singing.