A friend and I
sat down to lunch
by my large kitchen window
in late spring.
Tuna salad on soft white bread.

Movement outside
drew our attention
as the leaves and stems of the vinca
jerked back and forth.
“Not the wind,” said she.

As we talked and dined,
I glanced again
to the black shredded mulch
beside the short green stems
of the groundcover.

There curved a motionless dark snake,
his odd-shaped head turned away.
Body lined with a yellow stripe,
he lay exposed in the midday sun.

Out the front door I went,
binoculars in hand,
to stalk him from another angle
from a safe distance.

At closer view I saw
his unblinking yellow eye
and an unexpected bulge
close behind his jaw.

“My toad,”
I cried aloud.
“He ate my toad.”

Then back at the table
I rejoined my friend
And tried to explain.

“Last week,” I said,
“I almost squashed a toad.”
A soft, knobby, earth-brown toad,
hungry for mosquitoes.
“Right there in the same spot.”

We try to pull our glance away
and finish our tuna,
as we watch the bulge
slide halfway down the snake
to digestive death.

“Now, would you like
some more iced tea?”
I ask, aghast.
And as I pour, the yellow stripe
slides back into the vinca.