Epitaph to a toad

By A. M. O’Brien

In Suva when the rains come down, the roads seethe with toads. They are frantically alive until flattened by cars . . .

Toad squatted statue Still at the pothole drinking in the dew of a new day it seemed he glistened blistered with polychrome warts beautiful Buddha of the road disgorging technicolour croak still-steaming cascade squeezed out

almost delicately

by a passing car crystal eyes glowed deep in death "I was what you are: you will be what I am" so ran the inscription on a Goanese tombstone I remembered . . .