THE FROG (February 21, 2011)

Between dreams I saw a naked woman squatting on the floor like a frog. Her face puffed up, she kept her eyes closed most of the time. Now and then, she made a few small hops around an empty room. In her fifties, she had thin limbs, a round belly, and long, flat breasts that hung almost to her navel. Her fingers and toes seemed mangled. She was chinless. Enormous and apparently toothless, her mouth was shut tight. She had a bush of matted hair that looked as though it was glued to her hunched back. Whenever she would start hopping, her breasts flapped against her belly. Although faint, the flapping resonated through the empty room. Otherwise, she made no sound. Half awake, I marveled at the frog. I concluded that she must be an old inmate of a lunatic asylum.