Text Edit

Song For All the Would-Have-Been Princesses

Cow + Frog = Cowfrog

Consider the gall of the bullfrog, 
throatily calling at night for a mate, 
longing for a kiss from a Beauty 
that could change his fate.

Some say a frog is the male sex.

And girls who kindly put their lips to its 
are promised to get over their fears. 

But what about the cowfrog? 
No mammary glands, no sweet milk, all her eggs 
outside herself -- not a frog in history 
ever turned into a princess by a peck 
on the cheek from an innocent boy, 
as though female royalty and luck 
sprout from other stuff.

Once, before the Ranidae 
were green and slimy, a young she-frog, 
acting on impulse, shyly flirted with a prince. 
She batted her eyes, big and bright as flash bulbs, 
but, busily adjusting his white mink capelet, 
the prince said to someone in his court, 
"Get this commoner out of here! Does she not realize 
such a scandal could cost me my throne?!" 

And like St. Brigid, the defeated she-frog 
might have mumbled, "Please God, 
make me ugly, so I will no longer tempt men. 
So I will no longer be tempted." 
As though for a cowfrog, a would-be princess, 
desire itself is shameful.

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I spaced out the poem to four parts. I want to emphasize what is happening in each stanza in order to get a better picture. First stanza is recalling the fairy tale of bull frog in order to grab readers’ attention. The second stanza questions the fairy tale and twist the story by saying the frog was the cowfrog who was a girl. The third stanza tells the real story of how she became a cowfrog. And finally the fourth stanza reveals that her pride in her beauty eventually turned herself to become an ugly frog.  Everything else stays the same except in line 4-5. I started the new line from “Some say a frog is the male sex,” to make the poem clearer.