Today’s challenge is to write a poem that uses rhymes, but unlike yesterday, without adhering to specific line lengths. That’s it.

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The Pedagogue Bullfrog

Biology class.
Dissection Day.

The stink in the classroom would make ya cry. Remember?
When we were there to slay already dead frogs, not toads.

I think.
Step by disgusting step we cut the carcass open to expose wads and globs
of all the things I learned in high school: heart, lung, stomach.

But the smell is what I remember best.
Formaldehyde, Baby.

Like in the beer in the Nam,
A key component in dead humans when used to embalm.

But gizzards do not abound in and around Bullfrogs. Just chickens and turkeys
dissected at home by Mom for celebrations of life.

Of “all the crap I learned in high school it’s a wonder
I can think at all—but I can read the writing on the wall,”
and a good witch can read the petri dish entrails.

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Look both ways and hear the moan of the bull
because those frogs are not an endangered species.
Mind the gaps and touch your face before licking your lips. Embrace the stink.