No doubt the well’s run dry
but he returns to it
day after day expecting
to retrieve an oak bucket
full of clean, quenching water,

not sand and sediment, 
three bucks fifty in wishing coins,
certainly not the desiccated 
carcass of a bullfrog.
It would be insanity to think

tomorrow will be any different,
but he already knows he’ll be back, 
drawn to that miserly well,
sporting a new necklace of hollow bones,
singing a mid-summer’s song.