Living things

I have carried living things in my hands all week, sneaked up on
daddy-long-legs, pulled them off painted walls and held their brittle bodies.
I’ve picked up blue-black beetles like shiny stones, moved them
from inside rooms to out; they stick to my thumb, they seem
happy enough to cling on. Best of all, the two young frogs
who’d come onto the kitchen tiles to see what they could find.
I watched them bending their tiny legs, toothpick bones inside,
felt their rubbery skin against mine as they pushed away, they were amazing.
I have held living things in my hands all week, knowing
if I wanted I could close the space between my fingers.
And I think how it might have been for those two frogs, to be lifted up
so high, so fast: and when the light comes back they could be anywhere.