So Many Adventures Await
it says
on the lid of a gift box perfectly square
with cheerful confetti triangles of rainbow
color variety I brought home from visiting
my kin on Pigskin Road

So many shots in the dark await
I say
as I imagine it containing chocolate cones wrapped
in silvery foil with waving white pennants
or maybe
loose sandrock and fragrant grass with a few dead
blades mixed in for good measure–
a dandy retreat for a
horny toad

Give me the venture of chocolate
I say
on this moody and beautiful and rotten sunny day
Free me from my sullen stew of spit and steam
and chunks of organic fury and
free the horny toad
to go its down-to-earth
on-the-earth, close-with-earth way

Wait.

On second thought
I’ll climb in the box and skip kisses
to be a freed toad