Eating a Toad
by David Wagoner
Each morning when we wake, said Emile Zola,
We must eat our daily toad. We
have to face being
Merely
ourselves again, not less revolting
Dream selves. But consider those toads who have gone
Far, far out of their ways to be disgusting,
To
warn all predators they’re not simply
Inedible, but can make a poisonous mouthful,
Which as a first line of defense is as good
as most
Last
lines. Almost nothing on earth
Will willingly and knowingly eat a toad
Except a hedgehog, a creature
Of
modest habits and even more
Modest intentions. It moves slowly
In a semi-private world it must surely wish
Were
even more private. Because it can outrun
So few others among the living, it settles
For legless or torpid insects, dozing snakes,
Or
birds’ eggs it can always depend on
To hold still. It can’t see far enough
Ahead or behind to avoid the foxes and badgers
And
dogs that would eat it in spite
Of its rough spines and its inconvenient tactic
Of curling its body into a tight
Unmanageable
ball
And playing dead, and so, long before now,
It would have been more scarce than the
likes
(And
the admirably articulated dislikes)
Of Emile Zola if it hadn’t had the foresight
To overtake occasionally a complacent
Toad,
chew down that nearly lethal morsel,
And be heartily sick of it, foam at the mouth,
Then carefully lick itself all over
With
the results: the awful armor of Toadhood.
David Wagoner teaches at the University of Washington. He has published seventeen books of poems—most recently The House of Song (University of Illinois, 2002)—and ten novels, one of which, The Escape Artist, was made into a film by Francis Ford Coppola. He has won the Lily Prize and many others and has twice been nominated for the National Book Award. He was a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets for twenty-three years and the editor of Poetry Northwest until its end in 2002. (5/03)
