Frog Prince by Robert Borski

Frog Prince
by Robert Borski

Perhaps he merely lacks in self-confidence.
Perhaps she will not mind the webbed toes
and jade skin. Perhaps she’s too modern
a girl to believe the old canard about the prop-
agation of warts from a single caress. Perhaps
she prefers her consorts small. To be sure,
glimpsed from his palace of mud, and even
distorted by the gleam at the pond’s lid,
she’s a pretty thing, and in his less than noble
fantasies he imagines her working her tongue
on more than a cloud of gnats. And why not?
He is, for all his tadish insecurities, bog royalty —
a prince among bulls, adept at swimming
against the current, holding his breath deep
beneath the reeds, and croaking the brightest
of arias. So why, despite the possible taint
of miscegenation, would she find him anything
other than desirable? At this late hour, he tries,
but can think of no reason. However: just in case,
at the big moment, his nerve fails, he knows there
are glands in the back of his head that can be
counted on to secrete a mad toxin that will make
even him forget he’s a frog; thus, in a matter of
seconds, self-poisoned, he will propel himself
to the surface, leap into the kiss, and imagine
himself to be six feet tall.


Robert Borski lives, writes, and toddles toward infirmity in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.