Cambodian Frog-Gigging

Near Phnom Penh
in the killing fields
there are marshes
and swamps and pits
filled with skulls,
leg bones, arm bones,
fingers gripped around
fingers, praying
when they died.
People annihilated.
And now, a boy,
who must be near nine,
stands and gigs
the huge frogs,
fed on the rich rotted
human earth.
The frogs will be dinner.
The dead keep dying.
Memories nourish
what remains.

Kyes Stevens
Cambodian Frog-Gigging first appeared in Poetry Southeast, fall 2006.