Children
by and published in Edition Eight of Pomegranate
Frog, snake, lizard, toad – I know their crackled scales, hammerhead eyes, tongues
that search over scents and mud and coarse hairs.
When they are not in my bed
they are in yours.
They live like a sack of frog eggs,
blankets, pillows, arms, shedding skins
wrapped around their bodies, growing limbs
while you and I don armors of gold sequin scales
and trudge home through snow, unbuttoned winter coats,
dark mornings.
We wrap bass lines around our bodies
and synths coat our throats – it all feels like frog eggs,
it trembles in the rain,
we are safe within it.
We sleep in your bed with the babies,
and at midday you leave
sweeping up your trail of golden sequins.
I listen for the flickering tongues
and reptilian hissing,
small and orphaned.
Brenda Battad
Brenda Battad is an Electronic and Time-Based Art student at Carnegie Mellon University. She was born in the Philippines, and has since then become a 5’2 twenty-one-year-old. She primarily thinks about video art, sound, poetry, summer, Thai food, and riding her bike – but what she actually does is a mystery to many.