digging for frogs in other fields
by Hikari Leilani Miya
for hank the nine banded armadillo, an education animal at tallahassee museum, 2012 - february 3, 2024
if only nine bands meant you had nine lives. or,
maybe you did have nine lives, and used them
after healing from little accidents—a sprained foot,
a cut snout. part of me is glad your tail didn’t fall
off, necrotic as that tissue was, because you didn’t
deserve any more pain that i’m sure you still felt
despite pain relieving pill after pill, antibiotic injection.
i’m *happy face emoji* that i got to take you out for a walk
today, even if all you did was shuffle around a bit,
lay down to take a comfy nap on dead leaves *leaves emoji*
your fresh, bright pink bandaged tail was so *crying face emoji*,
even though underneath the necrosis was colored the opposite.
today was the first time i had wiped away the blood off
of an animal that was not my own. how the scarlet on
your snout gently colored the brown paper towel, how
i wish it could have done more. i could have done more.
there is no emoji for my apologies. my grief. silence amongst tears.
smart-sojourner, i remember how excitedly you shuffled
and snuffled outside, digging for worms, killing the occasional frog
in front of guests who had no idea you were an omnivore.
*screaming emoji* *frog emoji* *exclamation mark emoji*
one of my favorite sounds while working was your language
of claws against scratched plastic as you scrabbled beneath newspaper,
advertising in red sales on organic eggs you loved to eat (scrambled).
*egg emoji*, the never-ending slurp of you drinking water out
of the broad silver dog bowl, my favorite song. *music note emoji*
later, when we switched to a red giant pan in the ground, it was:
drink. roll in dirt. walk in water. drink. roll in dirt. drink. if only i had
such joys you had during dozen years, with space heaters, worn teal
craft store blankets, twitching crickets and thrashing mealworms, all those
soft gentle fingers traversing the map of your rough earthly skin, the bristly
paintbrush fur on your belly *red heart emoji*. i can’t do much as a poet
but write and remember. hank, dig up a frog in heaven’s field for me.
Hikari Leilani Miya is an LGBTQ Japanese-Filipina American who graduated from Cornell University in 2019 with a BA in English, and from University of San Francisco with an MFA in Creative Writing. She is a scholarship-awarded student in Florida State University's PhD program in creative writing, where she is a member of the Asian American Student Union and Vice President of the university's first Herpetology Club. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in dozens of in-print and online magazines across North America, including MacGuffin, Chestnut Review, Eunoia Review, Broadkill Review, and Cobra Milk. In 2021, she was a semi-finalist for the Red Wheelbarrow poetry prize judged by Mark Doty. Her first book of poems, sold out at AWP 2024, is published with Cornerstone Press. She currently lives in Tallahassee with her snakes, leopard gecko, and disabled cat, and volunteers at the Tallahassee Museum specializing in reptile care and handling. In addition to earning her master's certification in herpetology from the Amphibian Foundation and certification in husbandry and captive management, she is a former health care worker, percussionist, pianist, and competitive card game player.